


By Virtue of Passion

by Blame Canada (OneHitWondersAnonymous)



Category: South Park
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - College/University, Be gentle, Cutesy, Everyone Is Gay, First Meetings, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom, Prompt Fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-26
Updated: 2017-08-06
Packaged: 2018-08-17 11:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 33,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8142239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OneHitWondersAnonymous/pseuds/Blame%20Canada
Summary: Stan wanted a regular boring walk back to the dorms like he had every morning. He didn't ask for this random stranger to shout in his face. He certainly didn't ask for him to be cute, either. 
Rated T for gratuitous swearing. Style. College AU.





	1. A Phone Number From A Poster Still Counts As Scoring

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys and welcome to my first (public) leap into South Park fanfic! There was a prompt for this buried deep in the internet, and I thought it was so Kyle that I had to run with it. I might make this a two-shot but absolutely no promises. Please let me know what you think with a comment if you have time (or a kudos if you liked it!). Thanks for reading!
> 
> Side Note: This is somewhat based on a true story of mine and if you've been to college recently you might know what I'm talking about.

Stan had shoved his hands in his pockets nearly five minutes ago but he still couldn’t feel the tips of his fingers. It was fucking _freezing_ out, and he’d been in such a rush to get out the door that he hadn’t searched for his gloves. He’d thrown his coat on with his backpack not far behind and sprinted like his life depended on it. He’d been late enough times to this class that his professor had emailed him personally. He refused to miss out on elective credits just because he slept in a little too regularly.

He was trudging back to the dorms now after a particularly boring lecture but his bed felt miles away. He sighed, watching his breath cloud in front of him in the chilled October air. Judging from his morning, it was going to be a long week. He buried his face in the raised flaps of his coat so that only his eyes and the bridge of his nose were exposed. He exhaled through his nose to warm his chapped lips. Five more minutes and he would be walking back inside and rolling back into bed. He curled his fingers in his pockets, but it did nothing to conserve heat.

The sea of people that had gotten in his way as much as possible on his way to class was practically gone at this late morning hour. A good chunk of students had classes now, whereas Stan had opted for the earlier classes to get a longer night once the day was over. It was a fucking mistake and he beat himself up over it every morning. The pathways were basically empty now though, which was nice. Stan let himself zone out and watched a few straggling leaves tumble by.

It took him several seconds to recognize that a voice was basically screaming into his ear to his right in front of the student union building. It was a shrill, continuous screech that almost made Stan want to plug his ears. Goddamn, the asshole had lungs. He glanced over for just a second, but it was second too long, and he’d been captured. Fuck.

“Hey!” He called out, and he didn’t jog so much as he ran to get in front of Stan’s field of view, effectively stopping him in his tracks. This kid looked fucking cold, Stan thought first, noting his slight shivering and rosy cheeks. How long had he been out here shouting? He had fiery eyes and hair to match, poking out in every direction under a hat that didn’t seem to contain it very well. A scowl looked strangely natural on his face and Stan had to wonder if arguing was his favorite thing to do.

Stan blinked and noticed that the dude was staring at him expectantly. His chest was rising and falling as though he’d just had the shouting match of the century, and Stan realized he had probably ignored all of it in favor of fantasizing about how soft his bed blankets were gonna be. Seriously, they were going to feel _so_ good over his popsicle fingers and toes. “Uh, what?” He asked, and the guy looked at him with such a strong ‘are you stupid’ look that he felt a little guilty.

“Let me ask you something,” he said, and Stan was actively surprised that he had a tone of voice besides too-loud, “do you write a lot of papers? What’s your name?”

“Uh, Stan.”

“Alright Stan, do you have to write a lot of papers for your major?”

Stan reached behind him to rub his neck awkwardly. Mystery man was making him feel incredibly on the spot for being the only two people within a fifty-foot radius. He still felt like everyone on campus could hear them. “Not really, uh, I have to print a lot of articles though, sometimes.”

Before he could ask why, angry redhead guy was answering it for him. “So you’re familiar with the program we, as students at this college, are forced to utilize while on campus?”

“Yeah, that printing bullshit? Yeah.”

“Yes! It’s bullshit!” The guy looked really pleased at his answer. Stan’s level of frozen was starting to creep dangerously high, but he didn’t want to be rude and leave him hanging. He looked so excited. “I’m campaigning to get that shit taken off so we can print our papers and articles in peace and for free like we deserve!” He shoved a flyer into Stan’s chest and he fumbled to yank his hands out of his pockets and grab it before it flew away. It had big flashy lettering on it but was printed in black and white; likely due to a restriction from the very bullshit he was campaigning against.

“Listen. Stan, right?” Stan nodded. “Stan, we both know this college is sucking our futures dry with how much debt it’s giving us so graciously. This is just a fact of life.” He looked so confident, and Stan could tell he was a person who enjoyed his soapbox. At some point he’d placed a hand on Stan’s shoulder in a way that tried to convey ‘friendly’ even though he was still spouting off into his ear like he was several yards away and stepping on his garden.

“The fact that they expect us, as paying customers at their school, to pay for our paper and ink usage is ridiculous. As if we aren’t paying them a fortune already! We give them enough cash that they should be just fine paying for the printers of all things, especially when they can find the money to renovate the fucking dining hall. They’re charging us _three times_ the normal cost of a single sheet of paper! Thesis papers are costing people a fortune!” His own speech was working him up and Stan would have laughed if he weren’t terrified that he’d get his throat punched. Instead, he just nodded.

For the first time, mystery guy smiled at him. It was all crooked and strangely warm and cute, and Stan suddenly felt a little more positively about this confrontation. Just a little, though. He still couldn’t feel his fingers or toes.

“Come to the meeting next week and we can put you in a place where you can be most useful to the campaign.” Damn, he was really serious about this. Truthfully Stan didn’t think of it as that big of a deal, but whatever. If it riled this guy up so much it must do the same to other people. He gave Stan’s shoulder a little shake to show his gratitude. “Thanks for listening, man. Here, I can give you some, hold on-“ He shuffled the thick stack of flyers in his hands a bit to loosen a chunk, and he handed them to Stan with the same goofy grin as before. “Spread the word! Post these everywhere! I want these fuckers to listen for once.” He made a fist dramatically, and Stan let himself chuckle. His enthusiasm was kind of endearing.

“Okay,” he said, but he didn’t have any intention of doing any of that. Maybe his attitude had been contagious, but Stan just wanted to listen to this guy talk. He bet he could go on for hours uninterrupted if given the chance, and the way he tried to move his hands around even with a heavy stack of flyers in hand was funny. Stan was sufficiently curious.

He turned on his heel and strutted quickly back to his post in front of the union. “Hey, wait up!” Stan called, and he jogged awkwardly to catch up to him. He turned around with confusion written all over his face. It was cute how expressive he was. Stan tried to ignore that thought. Come on Marsh, focus. “I never caught your name, dude. Only fair if you know mine and if I’m going to this meeting thing.” He shook his paper stack.

“Oh,” he said, and he looked a little embarrassed to have forgotten to introduce himself. “It’s Kyle. It’s printed out on the flyers.” Stan held out the stack and he pointed to one of the speech bubbles that read, ‘For More Information, Text Or Call Kyle Broflovski At 302-2350. Thank You For Your Support!’

“Okay, thanks man.” He flashed mystery-guy-now-dubbed-Kyle a grin, who returned it rather sheepishly for having been so outgoing only a few minutes ago. The shy smile was pretty cute too. Oh, goddammit. No.

Stan turned back in the direction of the dorms and started walking a little faster this time, because as much as that was an incredibly interesting conversation, he still couldn’t feel his fucking hands and that needed fixing. He read through the flyer twice while walking and it distracted him enough to forget about the cold biting his cheeks. He made it inside, made the loudest moan ever that probably disturbed some of his dorm mates when he crawled under the covers, and pulled out his phone to scroll twitter. He fell asleep enveloped in his warm bed and promptly forgot all about the flyers, but not about the boy named Kyle who had gifted them to him.

When he woke up a half hour later to get ready for his next class, he stared long and hard at the flyers, reading the same line over and over again. ‘Text Or Call Kyle Broflovski At 302-2350.’ Technically, he _had_ given him his phone number. Stan swallowed thickly.

After what could easily have been ten minutes of battling himself over whether or not he should, he took the plunge and typed the number into a new message. It took another five minutes to get the courage to actually send the message.

_hey this is stan from earlier. you handed me a bunch of flyers for this paperjam thing? this is kyle right?_

Stan let out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding and tried to make himself busy. He had to try really hard not to be creepy about this. Kyle was kind of cute and he was strangely captivating. He’d left too big of a mark to fade into Stan’s background. After what felt like an eternity his phone chirped and buzzed on his bedside table and he snatched it so fast he nearly launched it across the room.

_Hi? Yes, this is Kyle. Do you have a question for me?_

Stan thanked every god he could think of that Kyle was oblivious. Then, with a long pause of his thumbs hovering over his phone’s keyboard, Stan realized he had no idea what to say next.

 “Fuck.”


	2. Typos Make The Heart Grow Fonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Texting is hard. Stan learns this the hard way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So turns out I got a liiiiittle more invested in this than I thought I would. I couldn't just leave it at that. Go figure, right? Thanks to the lovely commenters who encouraged me to keep going, it's all for you!

“Dude, I don’t get the hang up. Just fucking text him back already.”

Stan groaned and lolled his head away from the window and toward his favorite (and also least favorite) dorm mate, Kenny McCormick. Kenny was his favorite because he said whatever he wanted to, whenever he wanted to, and was surprisingly candid when in a private setting compared to his rambunctious outer self. He was his least favorite because he literally always left his dishes in the sink. Fucking dick.

“It’s not that simple, Kenny.”

“Why not? Just be like ‘hey, how was your day’ or something really tame. You can whip out the dick pics after like, three days, maybe two.” Kenny smirked with mischief in his eyes visible across the room, and Stan flipped him off half-heartedly. Favorite and least favorite, all wrapped up into one guy who fit the caricature “little shit” incredibly well despite having several inches on Stan. He was also a giant self-proclaimed slut and Stan had crazy respect for that. The kid got around and he’d never let you forget it.

Stan rolled off his back into a sitting position on his bed. He tucked his legs under him and stared at the darkened screen of his phone. “All this time I’ve only talked to him about his big project. It’s been strictly business, Kenny!”

“Yeah,” Kenny droned, “and you’re _sooo_ interested in his cause.” He rolled his eyes. “Stanley, you are so fucking into this guy that you have listened to him rant about something literally no one else cares about for hours at a time. I think it’s time you took it out of ‘professional’ and put it in ‘personal’ before it’s too late.”

Stan glared at the usage of his full first name but didn’t have the heart to hold it. He sighed and covered his eyes with one hand, massaging his temples. “Ugh, I know.” He mumbled.

“See, and knowing is half the battle.” Kenny flashed his trademarked million-dollar smile that managed to woo half the college’s population. That was regardless of gender or sexuality, by the way. Stan could definitely vouch for how hot his friend was, but he also figured most the people infatuated with him hadn’t held his hair from his face while he vomited his guts out in a grungy gas station bathroom. It was a long and wildly unflattering story. They’d sworn each other to secrecy.

A comfortable silence settled between them and Stan scrolled through the open conversation with Kyle on his phone, all fifteen of their texts. Kenny was right, this was unnecessarily complicated, but he’d kind of gotten himself into this mess. When he first texted Kyle he’d had no clue what to say to him other than ask him vague questions about his campaign, which he happily indulged in with essays in texting format.

Their first meeting was supposed to be tomorrow, and Stan mentally kicked himself for getting so fake-invested. Going to the meeting was going to seriously cut into his usual Sunday fucking-around-on-the-internet time. That was besides the fact that he also didn’t care.

“Well,” Kenny announced, slapping his hands on his knees, “if you’re not gonna grow a pair in the next five minutes I’m gonna bounce. I can only be emotional support if you actually do something emotional that requires support.” He shrugged his shoulders that were swallowed up by his ridiculously fluffy parka.

“Kenny shut up I’m working on it!” Stan all but whined. “What the fuck do I say? The last text he sent me was super detailed directions to a room in Hyde Hall. Half my classes have been there. I didn’t need directions; I just didn’t know what to say. He uses perfect grammar all the time. The dude doesn’t even touch emojis, man.”

“Oh shit.” Kenny whistled quietly. “Are you sure this guy is in your league?”

“Not really, since all we’ve talked about is this fucking campaign I don’t care about.” Kenny laughed and pointed at him for admitting his neutrality on the subject and he basically growled. “I just wish I knew _something_ about him: favorite color, movie genre, whatever. I don’t care what, but I need _something_ or else all this effort is gonna feel like a huge waste.”

“Ask him about school,” Kenny said. He played with the strings on his hood pulled back over his neck. “That’s kind of related and he seems like a giant nerd based on what you’ve said, so you may score points.”

He had a point. It could work out to segue into normal-people-conversation. Stan unlocked his phone, scrolled through their conversation again down to the bottom, and selected the text box. He typed furiously and sent it with a grimace like he was throwing away moldy food.

     _hey so whats your major? you seem to like campaigning a lot so i was wondering if that was what you sutdied_

_*studied_

“What’d you say?” Kenny asked, leaning forward with a grin creeping up his face.

“I asked him what his major was.”

Kenny nodded in approval. “That might just work, Marsh. You may be onto something.” His voice hinted on sarcasm but his expression looked genuine. He shoved himself up to his feet by his knees and walked over to Stan’s bed to clap a hand over his back. “Good luck, bro. I’m gonna go find my study partner for Lit.”

Stan snorted. “Yeah, like I’m gonna believe you actually study on a weekend _not_ right before a test. Boy or girl, neither or both?”

Kenny’s grin turned wicked. “Boy. You’d understand if you saw him, Stan. He has, like, the tightest ass—”

“Oh my god Kenny, please stop.” Stan felt his face flush and Kenny laughed.

“Whatever, I’ll see you later. Let me know if he texts you back, I’m invested in this now. Operation: Get Stanny A Boyfriend is a go!”

Stan gaped and threw one of his pillows at him full force. “Get the fuck out!” Kenny cackled all the way out the door and down the hall. Stan felt his blush intensify, much to his chagrin. Crushes were such bullshit. He wasn’t even sure it was a crush. Can you crush on someone you don’t know? More like mindless infatuation.

His phone chirped and his heart clutched so tightly he thought he was having a fucking heart attack.

_No, I’m an English major. I’m going for prelaw though. What’s yours?_

He had to use his perfect sentences because he was an English snob. Okay, maybe this wasn’t going to work.

_gen ed rn, im not sure yet_

He winced at how much higher up the ladder Kyle seemed to be. Prelaw was some heavy shit. He had to be some sort of honors student. Definitely a nerd, like Kenny predicted. He was surprised that he’d answered his question, but he rolled with it with butterflies in his stomach when the three dots of a response incoming popped up. This was some real grade school bullshit.

_That’s okay, not everyone knows what they want to study when they first start up._

Oh great, he was giving him some sort of pity party. This felt less like a conversation and more like a counseling session now. Their conversation had grown four texts though (five counting the typo correction), so he guessed it was still progress.

_Do you have anything you’re passionate about?_

Stan stilled. That almost sounded like a regular question, and it was a follow-up one at that. He typed quickly but waited a few moments, not wanting to seem too eager.

_not really. i mean i love animals and shit so maybe that counts. dont want to do vet stuff tho, too much school_

Truthfully, it made him nauseous to even consider and not because of the school, but maybe the lax attitude would help.

_I wouldn’t let schoolwork hinder you. If it’s a cause you care about, it might be worth ‘too much school.’_

Stan smiled. It was actually… a really nice thing to say. Even though he’d kind of lied about it, seeing Kyle say something like that was really encouraging. He was sweet under all that nerdiness, go figure.

_thnks dude_

Quickly followed by:

_if we’re talking ab passion it seems like law fits you pretty well ;)_

Stan’s breath left him. Holy shit, accidental winky face, abort mission. You can’t just correct a winky face typo. He hadn’t even sent him a smiley face before. Shit shit shit. Panic.

_I guess I just like standing up for what I think is right._

He let out a huge breath he’d held in relief. He knocked his head back against his wall and let his eyes close. Okay, this wasn’t a total disaster. This was fine. He shut off his phone and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. He was acting like a total loser over some fucking texts. This was a new low.

Hunger was starting to gnaw at his stomach and he figured it was close enough to dinnertime that he’d head to the dining hall early. A few of his friends would probably be there straight from class too. He shoved on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt with barely a glance in the mirror to make sure he wasn’t a complete mess. He was kind of a complete mess, but he didn’t really give a shit. Stan wore messy hair surprisingly well anyway. He pulled his old favorite hat over it and spent extra time making sure he had gloves this time before he left, but not before checking his phone one more time. He had a text that he hadn’t caught a notification for in his open conversation.

     _:)_

He punched the air with a quietly hissed “yesss” and beamed as he put his phone in his pocket and practically skipped out the door. Little victories, man. Little victories.


	3. Clichés Make The World Go ‘Round

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee dates are extremely overdone, but Stan'll make an exception. At least for him.

The meeting hadn’t been too bad, surprisingly. The turnout was actually pretty high, but most of the people who showed only seemed interested in the _idea_ of a protest and instead chatted with each other over any sort of directions. It didn’t stop Kyle from quieting them all down with a deafening roar and giving an expertly crafted speech. He had everyone cheering by the end with fists in the air, and Stan was impressed with how well he commanded a crowd. Kyle was beaming while everyone filed out, and it was so enchanting Stan found himself staring.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and milled around as the last few herds of people left the classroom until it was basically only them in the room. He spent that time going over what he was going to say, but Kyle fucked it all up by talking first.

“So what did you think?” He asked, his smile lessening to allow for speech. It still showed his tiny dimples that cut through the pinprick freckles that covered his face in the best way.

“Uh, it seemed like people really liked your speech at the end?” He said more like a question. He really wished he’d stop saying ‘uh’ all the time whenever Kyle talked to him. He scratched at his wrists absently while he fretted over his words. This sweater was kind of itchy.

“Yeah, I think we have a real shot at this,” Kyle said, and the fire in his eyes that he’d seen before in the freezing cold warmed him. Stan was mostly excited by the use of the word ‘we.’ Kyle had this amazing ability to make you feel like the center of everyone’s attention and also the only other person in the world at the same time. It felt awesome and intimidating.

“I’m happy for you man.” He really meant it, too. It was nice to see Kyle so excited. He flashed him a little smile and Kyle seemed to freeze up a bit before relaxing again, leaning into the teacher’s desk.

“We have to get out of here before the janitors give us a hard time.” Kyle said, and he almost sounded disappointed. “I had more I wanted to talk to you about, but I guess it can wait.” Stan didn’t get his hopes up about the topic. It was definitely going to be about this campaign. Before he could feel completed dejected about it, though, Kyle snapped him back into the present.

“We could do coffee or something, one of these mornings.”

Stan fought with all the strength in his fucking body to keep himself from flipping his shit at the idea. Holy shit. Okay, no, this isn’t a date. This is strictly business. Still. Dammit. He tried to distract himself by mentally balancing his checkbook to allow for a $4 coffee.

“Okay, yeah, uh,” he stumbled over his words, pissed at himself for saying ‘uh’ again, “yeah, that would work.” He let out a sigh that he hoped Kyle wouldn’t notice.

Kyle smiled at him and he felt his heart inflate again instantly. “Okay, I’ll text you.” His heart sung too, then.

“Yeah, alright.” Stan held back what would surely have been a ridiculously dopey grin. Coffee with a cute boy? Damn Marsh, that’s pretty fucking gay. “See ya.”

“Yeah, I’ll see you later.” They both stepped out and parted ways in the hall. As soon as Kyle fell out of view, Stan whipped out his phone and texted Kenny the good news.

 

_omg fr? omg stanny boy im so proud_

_did he kiss u yet ;) ;) ;)_

 

Stan rolled his eyes. Kenny frequently used multiples of every emoticon and never cared if his sentences made sense or not.

 

_no dumbass we talked for like five minutes_

_awwwwwww shit :( :(_

_its ok im still proud_

_my lil closet case is growin up so fast_

_shut the fuck up kenny i will bust you for your stash so hard_

_gasp_

_u wouldnt dare :o_

 

_dont try me bro fuck you_

_its ok babe i still love u ( /*3*)/_

_fuck off >:(_

_only bc u asked so nicely_

_talk soon bae xo xo_

 

Stan let out a frustrated grunt, letting the anger pass. It was Kenny’s odd way of showing affection, teasing and pushing buttons. He spent the rest of his walk home dividing up the remaining hours of his day into homework time and fucking-around-on-the-internet time.

The follow-up text from Kyle didn’t take too long to come but Stan had been actively trying to ignore his phone and failing for hours. Usually he was pretty good about keeping his phone on the table while he studied, but it was bugging the crap out of him. He was expecting an interruption.

 

_Hey! When is your first class tomorrow?_

 

Stan’s heart dropped to his stomach and exploded with nerves. Tomorrow? Already?

 

_its at 8 but i get out at 9:30 and dont have class again til 12_

_before 8 would be a bad time, im extra shitty in the morning_

_Haha, I’m not much of a morning person either, actually._

_How about 10?_

 

Somehow he made a capitalized ‘haha’ not sound stuffy as fuck, but maybe it was because Stan could connect it to the face.

He hesitated to answer him. Tomorrow was so soon. It gave him basically no time to build himself up. Stan had minimal experience with dating, putting it nicely. Most of what he knew had been with women, on top of that. A lot of what he’d learned had been vicarious through Kenny, who liked to give him the play-by-plays of his many escapades in vivid, disgusting detail.

With that in mind, Kenny probably couldn’t save him this time. He played too fast and dirty. Stan went down the rather short list of people he could trust to help him out and didn’t find much there either. Craig would be no help since dating wasn’t his thing anyway, Clyde would get way too into it to the point where Stan would just get annoyed with him, and any of the girls would probably mimic Clyde. Bebe might be cool about it. Emphasis on _might_. He groaned audibly and fell back on his bed with his phone on his stomach, study materials scattered around him haphazardly. He reminded himself for the hundredth time that this wasn’t actually a date, either.

He laid that way for a while, a crestfallen feeling sinking through his stomach, before the idea came to him in a zap. He grabbed his phone and scrolled through his conversations before latching onto his target in record speed.

 

_hey man I need your help with something. think you could maybe weigh in?_

The response was almost immediate.

 

_Well sure Stan! What’s got ya hurtin?_

Stan groaned, and finally wrote him his essay.

 

_theres this guy and i kinda stole his number from a flyer for some group he made but rly the reason i wanna talk is bc hes cute. but like, weve talked about nothing else. its literally just been ab this flyer and his project thing. its gotten kinda serious, the project thing, and idk how to go about telling him that i actually dont care ab it or if i even should tell him that. anyway he asked me to get coffee tmrw and im trying not to freak out or think of it as a date but idk i really like him butters. what do you think?_

 

Stan cringed at what a mess his text had been looking back over it, and he guessed Butters had a similar thought when he wrote back. 

 

_Well sorry Stan but I think I’m confused about what your askin! Do you mean if you should accept his offer?_

_I think you should go for it if you think he’s cute! c:_

 

Stan sighed, pushing all his study materials off his bed so he could curl up under his covers. He wasn’t gonna get any more work done tonight, that much was clear. Test tomorrow or not.

 

_i mean yeah i think hes cute but idk. i shouldnt get my hopes up right? this isn’t a date he just wants to talk ab his project_

_Are you sure about that Stan? Maybe it is kinda like a date and your lookin at it all wrong ^o^_

 

There was a long pause between messages where Stan felt his brain melt. Oh god, was he getting played now? Was Kyle actually interested? Fuck, he didn’t even know if he liked guys, he could be straight as a board for all Stan knew. Which wasn’t jack shit. He didn’t know jack shit about him except his major and his text sentence structure.

 

_I think that you should go, an you should try to just be nice and see what happens. I think you should tell him that your not really interested in his project though, at least eventually. It might hurt him a little to feel like you’ve been lyin about it all this itme. :c_

_time*_

 

Stan sighed. He was definitely right. He was starting to feel pretty guilty deep down for keeping the ruse going so long. He thought maybe if he spent enough time on it that he might start to care, but it still wasn’t really fazing him. What a shit show.

 

_ok thnks butters_

_talk to you soon :) we gotta hang out again soon_

_You’re welcome! That sounds real nice Stan, I’ve got a lot to tell ya about! :3_

 

Stan smiled. Butters was actually a really nice guy once you got through how corny he was as a person. He never seemed to end up in any of their groups though. He couldn’t really explain why. Stan guessed maybe he was a little forgettable, even if he was nice and fun enough. He’d probably owe him after all this, so he’d make a more conscious effort to include him in things.

Stan switched his conversation back to the one with Kyle, his offer of 10 o’clock still standing unanswered. He bit the inside of his lip and glanced at the time stamp, noting he’d left it for about twenty minutes. It was getting late, and he hoped he hadn’t missed his opportunity to accept the invitation.

 

_yeah 10 is good_

_the one by the dining hall right?_

 

Kyle answered surprisingly fast.

 

_That’s the one! Great. See you then. :)_

 

Another smiley face to add to the trophy case, he realized with a grin. He really hoped Butters had been right. His stomach twisted faintly at the thought of coming clean about his intentions, but he tried to ignore it in favor of the high of accepting an offer for _coffee_ with _Kyle._

He didn’t respond but left the conversation window open, suddenly feeling very tired all cozied up in his blankets. He clicked off the lights and fell asleep easily on his back, his phone loosely held in one hand on his stomach.

The next day, Stan felt like he was practically unraveling at the seams. He arrived barely on time to class at eight and he was pretty sure he bombed the fuck out of the test they’d had, despite his studying (although it was very distracted studying). Fucking Kyle and his fucking perfect face. His entire body was alight with nothing but nerves now though, because fucking Kyle and his fucking perfect face was probably waiting for him in the café _right now_.

He power-walked the rest of the way toward the dining hall and slipped into the nearest restroom to try to sweep through his messy hair and look less like a sleep deprived monster, but there wasn’t a whole lot he could do without a comb and lots of makeup. He sighed, ran a shaky hand through his hair once more, and stumbled out the door to the dining hall. He took the tight corner that led to the separated café and slowed down, looking around at the small booths and tables hesitantly for his not-date. For a second Stan almost believed slow motion was a real thing.

In one of the farther booths Kyle was sitting alone, sat perfectly in the middle and hunched forward just slightly. His left hand cradled a to-go cup with a dozen sharpie hieroglyphs while the other stirred it slowly. He was looking down into it, his nose partially buried in the soft-looking scarf wrapped around his neck several times, and he looked bored. Gorgeously bored. Stan had to remind himself how to breathe, swallow and blink all at once and he nearly choked on his own spit, but he bit it down with embarrassing difficulty and a stifled cough. A feeling of dread sunk in the pit of his stomach and made him nauseous. Oh, he was gonna fuck this up so bad. Oh shit.

Stan turned slightly so he’d be out of view should Kyle look up from swirling his hot drink. He closed his eyes and counted to three, coaching himself through the bullshit emotions that were practically tearing his chest apart. He took a deep breath, willing all the thoughts of _‘panic!’_ and _‘cute!’_ and _‘fuck!’_ to disappear for just long enough to start talking. Once he eased in, he’d be fine.

He braced himself one last time and rounded the corner with as much confidence as he could fake. He walked slowly but tried to keep it steady, and he resisted the urge to either run or vomit at the sight of his not-date sitting not-so-far-away, waiting for _him_ of all assholes. Stan was about to clear his throat and greet him, but Kyle looked up from his coffee first and stunned him with sparkling green eyes bright with warm enthusiasm.

 “Hey!”


	4. The Worst Kind Of Wingman

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan's finally got a nice thing going. Kenny seems hell-bent to ruin it. Stan is not amused.

“I can’t believe they’re making me jump through all these ridiculous hoops, man. This is justice! This shouldn’t be that hard to argue!”

“Uh huh,” Stan mumbled through a dreamy smile, chin resting on his palm. He looked down at his textbook and notes strewn across the table, but he paid no real attention to them. Listening to this was way better.

“Honestly, I swear they’re doing this just to fuck with me. The power trip gives them some sort of weird boner, or something.”

“Yeah,” Stan breathed through a laugh.

Kyle had been at it for approximately twenty blissfully uninterrupted minutes. Stan decided he would throttle the person to distract him from his tirade. Kyle talked so passionately pretty much all the time, and the way he swung his hands around in big gestures suggested that he’d probably hit more than a few people by accident while talking.

Stan let his eyes wander, taking in the sights while Kyle ranted. The words may as well have been gibberish, because all Stan could focus on was the way his cheeks were reddening and his lip was twitching like it did when he got really into something. It was amazing what stalker-ish things he’d picked up on already.

Kyle had asked him if he’d wanted to meet up at the library over text. It was a simple invitation, in a ‘we both don’t have anything going on so we may as well do nothing together’ sort of way, but Stan snagged it with an iron grip. Kyle had brought half his own library with him and it took up most of the generously sized table. Stan sheepishly pulled out his single spiral notebook and beat up textbook that was starting to fall apart.

They’d discovered that they actually both had a few hours free between classes on Wednesdays, and when Kyle had noticed Stan struggling to study himself, he’d offered to help _._ _“I’m not taking the same classes,”_ he’d said, _“but I’m sure I could still help you out if you gave me flashcards to hold up.”_ Kyle didn’t need to know that the reason Stan couldn’t focus was because of the way the light bronzed his bright red curls _just_ right. He had to be the most naïve asshole on the planet not to realize he was the one distracting the fuck out of Stan whenever they met. Stan had refused in an attempt to be polite, even though his brain was screaming to accept Kyle’s offer if only to spend more time with him.

 _“Well fine,”_ Kyle had huffed, _“if you won’t let me help you at least compromise with me. We can meet here on Wednesdays to do whatever work we have to do. It’ll be like a study group, except we’ll be studying totally different things.”_ He’d laughed, kind of nasally and not at all graceful but it was music to Stan’s ears. He was starting to wonder if his infatuation was taking a dangerous turn toward ‘beyond all reason.’

That had been three weeks ago, and now it was an unusually warm Wednesday for November and Stan was still pretending to study and pretending to listen all at once.

“Dude, are you even listening?” Shit, caught in the act. Stan flicked his eyes to meet Kyle’s, which burst with emotion constantly and currently held an air of slight irritation. He sent him a smile, and said irritation seemed to melt away to make room for the crinkling if his own grin.

“Sorry, I’m just really stuck on this biology shit.” It was partially true.

Kyle’s brow upturned with palpable sympathy and it hit Stan right in the gut. How he’d managed to get used to feeling nauseous pretty much all the time, he had no idea. “I get it. Biology is really not my thing either. Flashcards!” He waved his hands around wildly, stealing a small chuckle from Stan. “Seriously, give them a chance. They work wonders for shit classes like this that have so much memorization.”

“I’ll think about it,” he teased, and Kyle groaned in fake frustration. Silence fell between them for a few seconds, and Stan jumped to fill it. Any free moment Kyle could be rambling about something was a moment wasted. “So, Thanksgiving break is coming up in a couple weeks. You have any family to visit?”

Kyle snorted. “No Stan, I live by myself in the mountains with the woodland creatures while I’m not at college.” Stan smirked at his sarcasm, which was apparently enough invitation for a real answer. “I have a pretty boring family. Little brother, mom, dad. My mom likes to cook a shit-ton of food for the holiday.”

“Boring isn’t bad,” Stan said, and he winced at his own eagerness to reply. “Fuck, I wish my family was boring. My dad is a fucking nutcase pretty much all the time. My mom is chill though, considering, and my sister mellowed out a lot since we were kids. We try with Thanksgiving I guess, but it always turns into a disaster.” Stan paused. “Okay, maybe over-sharing. Sorry.”

Kyle laughed again. “It’s okay! I like hearing things about you. I feel like I talk about 90 percent of the time we’re around each other. It’s a nice change of pace.” Stan felt his heart flutter and his stomach flip dangerously, and he had to actively fight down a throat full of bile. Kyle liked listening to _him?_ He could get used to this.

“Yo!” A voice called out, eliciting several hushes from irritated students, and Stan whipped around to find the source. None other than Kenny McCormick was sauntering up to them in the ‘coolest’ way he knew, which basically meant keeping his hands in his pockets and looking around despondently like a dweeb. Kenny really tried to play it cool most of the time, and he really failed at it most of the time. Stan was still baffled at how much the dork slept around. Must be a pretty notoriously good lay. That, or knowing his true personality under the ruse just ruined the vibe for him personally.

As soon as Kenny was close enough, he snaked an arm around Stan’s shoulders. “Hey babe,” he muttered just loud enough for Kyle to hear, “miss me?” A chill ran down his spine. Stan could murder him. Ugh.

Don’t do it Kyle. “Oh,” he said, too quietly, “hi. Who is this?” He smiled up at Kenny but it didn’t seem to reach his eyes. He was way too quiet.

Don’t do it Kenny. “I’m his very devoted, very gay partner. Isn’t that right Stanny-boy?” Oh my god.

Stan could feel his face heat up hotter than hell itself. “No, you are _not.”_

Kenny whined. “Aww come on. You’re no fun.”

“No, I’m not. Fuck off, McCormick.”

“Jeez, okay. Just wanted to meet the guy you’ve ditched me for on several occasions.” Shut _up_ Kenny, god. He held out a hand with his winning smile, and Stan felt a small surge of what could only be jealousy when Kyle’s cheeks lit up. “Name’s Kenny. I’m Stan’s dorm mate and not-boyfriend.” His smile turned toothy. “You must be Kyle.”

Kyle looked as flustered as Stan was and even stammered to respond, a first. “U-uh, yeah, my name is Kyle. How did you know about me?”

Kenny pointed a thumb over his shoulder to point at the wall. “Posters everywhere for your thingy. Of course, that’s ignoring the midnight gushing sessions Stanley so generously provides for me on a nightly basis.” Stan punched his arm, hard, and he recoiled with a yelp. It felt good to hear.

“Sorry, Kenny’s an asshole.” Stan deadpanned, and Kyle laughed the loudest he’d heard yet, a snort worming its way in halfway through. The death glares of sleep-deprived students honed in on him for it.

“I’m really confused, but I’ll take your word for it.” Kyle smiled warmly and Stan averted his gaze, mumbling incoherent sounds. Fucking Kyle and his fucking perfect face. “Uh, I’ve got class soon, so I better get going.” He gathered his books impressively fast and lugged his bursting messenger bag over his shoulder. He gave Stan no time to stop him and all but avoided eye contact. “Bye Stan, see you around Kenny.” A flame of jealousy licked at Stan’s stomach. If Kenny fucked this up for him, swear to God…

As soon as Kyle had rounded the far corner, the devil himself tore Stan’s gaze from him with a harsh twist of his shoulders. Stan stifled a cry in alarm and slight pain. “Jesus Kenny, calm down!” He scowled at him, but it disappeared at Kenny’s massive shit-eating grin. Oh fuck. “What?”

“I’ve seen him around before. You do me proud, boy.” Kenny wiped away a fake tear and Stan groaned in embarrassment. “Can’t miss that hair from a mile away. I’ve walked behind him enough times to see what’s got you going, too.” He waggled his eyebrows and Stan punched him almost for real. Kenny reeled back and rubbed his sore shoulder with another laugh, subdued for the library’s ambiance.

“Dude, I don’t get what your fixation with asses is, but you can stop, like, any time. Preferably now.” Kenny’s smirk widened as Stan’s face darkened. God, this was so embarrassing. He was thankful he and Kyle had chosen a rather secluded corner to study in.

“Look, all I’m sayin’ is you picked a winner, alright? He seems pretty fucking gay too, so congrats for not picking some straight asshole to pine over because that shit was _so_ annoying last semester.” Stan had tried really hard to forget about that particular humiliation. Instead of getting angry again, though, he sighed.

“I dunno, what if I fuck this up?”

Kenny shrugged. “Well, you’ve already got him coming back to see you regularly. That counts for something. The rest should just sorta fall into place.” He clasped his hands together silently.

“Listen, Kenny, not to be a dick, but should I really be getting dating advice from _you?_ I’m pretty sure your usual routine is ‘fuck anything that moves’ and ‘date’ isn’t in the vocabulary.”

He placed a hand to his chest in dramatically fake shock, a tiny girlish gasp popping out of his throat. “Why Stanley, how could you? I am plenty capable of the sweet nuances of courtship!” Stan rolled his eyes so hard he felt the strain in his skull. Kenny snickered. “Seriously though, you’re doing fine. Just roll with what you got.”

“Rolling with what I’ve got has been my whole game plan so far, Ken.” Stan frowned.

“Great! Then just keep doing that. Just be you, dude. He’ll love you.” Kenny’s smile turned gentle and Stan felt his heart skip a beat at the thought. Jesus fucking Christ he was already whipped.

Without warning, Kenny turned on one heel and put both hands back into his pockets to meander to god knows where. “Hey, where the fuck are you going? I know your classes are done for the day.” Stan glanced at the nearest clock. His next class was in fifteen minutes.

Kenny waved him off with one hand, not bothering to look back. “Lit boy demands the sweet nuances of courtship!” He stole a quick glance at Stan’s glare and his shoulders shuddered with what could only be controlled giddy laughter. He turned the corner, and Stan was alone.

He snapped his notebook shut and shoved it into his bag to speed-walk his way to his afternoon class. He spent the trip on autopilot, instead consumed by the thoughts Kenny had planted throughout his brain. Just roll with it. Didn’t seem like he knew how to do anything else. Just be you. Okay, easier said than done.

He sighed as he approached the lecture hall’s open door and tugged off his gloves to paw at his phone. After opening his mail app and opening all the unread emails to get the annoying red number off his screen, he popped back to his messages. The last thing he’d sent Kyle was a bad joke after making study plans, and Kyle had responded positively with his always-capitalized _Haha, nice. :)_.

If he was going to roll with it, he may as well go all-out.

_hey dude, hows class?_


	5. Compliments Are Best Served On Accident

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan invites Kyle over to a typical afternoon of dormitory shenanigans, and his feelings only half get in the way.

The dorm building Stan lived in had its pros and cons, and everyone had their own definition of what was a pro and what was a con. The stoners would probably call the hyper-sensitive smoke alarms on the fourth floor a con, while the kid with asthma down the hall would owe them his life. At the end of the day, everybody made some compromises.

When Kenny McCormick and Craig Tucker actually put their stubborn heads together at the beginning of last semester, they had created what was probably the most agreed upon pro of the building: Smash Sundays. It was a shortened title, because no one wanted to bother saying ‘Super Smash Bros Sundays’ and it sounded way more ‘cool’ to the uninformed according to Kenny. Over time they’d included more competitive games to the roster (but the name stuck), and expanded the audience to a healthy crowd beyond their circle of friends. It was their monthly appointment for sick combos and forgetting studying for a few hours. It was a weird, but much appreciated, kind of therapy.

Stan was watching Kenny from one of the couches against the wall. He swore loudly at the ancient TV set he was desperately trying to rig into a proper entertainment center. He’d held a stupid rivalry with Craig over who could play the shittiest characters the best since freshman year. Smash Sundays were the blessed result. Its conception was definitely one of Stan’s favorite-Kenny moments. He was shit at most of the games they played, but the excitement of everybody else made it fun and the junk food piles helped. It was a good excuse not to lie around all day alone in his room on Sunday. It kept up the facade of a valid social life.

Stan fucked around with the layout of his phone as he waited. He usually showed up on his own time and fashionably late, but this was different. He’d invited Kyle over, per Kenny’s suggestion. Outsiders were rare, and commuters even more so. Kyle was the latter. Stan had discovered it was actually kind of difficult to get hangout time with Kyle without seeming suspicious. The Wednesday afternoons were great but Stan was getting greedy. The more he learned about Kyle, the more amicable he got. Being friends was like a book with Kyle—once you got to read another chapter, you could hold onto and reread that chapter forever. It became a permanent invitation that brought you a little bit closer with each paragraph. It was warm and fuzzy. Kyle radiated heat constantly with the fire in his eyes and bite to his quick wit, and that was besides his raging crush. Even after all this time, Stan was awed by his passionate speeches. He always spoke in speeches, whether his audience was one love-struck asshole or an entire lecture hall.

Kenny stood back with a whoop of triumph as the TV’s screen flickered to life with the loading screen for his beat-up GameCube. Nostalgia had bitten him in the ass and required a Melee tournament this time. No one would complain. Melee was good shit.

A couple of regulars trickled in not long after that and the snacks were broken out. Once a sizable cast (and Craig) had arrived, Kenny and Craig organized a tournament on the whiteboard meant for studying but was used for anything but. The faded lines of crude dick scribbles would never come out. Stan clicked his phone screen on nervously—he’d told Kyle three, right? It was nearing four now. He didn’t want to bother him with a follow-up text, which was half out of fear that Kyle had totally forgotten and flaked without realizing.

Not long after his sixth time check, a call from Kyle popped up and Stan answered readily. “Hey man, what’s up?” He cupped a hand against his other ear to drown out a burst of cheering for the end of a round.

“Dude, I’m so sorry,” Kyle said, sounding out of breath and crackly from poor phone reception. “Parking gave me a hard time for trying to park on the weekend without some stupid permit. Assholes, I’m a student here! I should be able to park wherever I want for how much money they’re siphoning away. Where the fuck is your building? I don’t get the dorms; they’re so fucking disorganized. Who fucking designed these?” Wind blew through the speakers and Stan winced at how loud it sounded over his shitty service.

“It’s the big one, the really tall one around the middle. It looks like a rectangle but 3D.”

“Okay smartass… okay. I think I got it. Gallagher, right? Give me like five minutes and I’ll be there.”

Stan said goodbye and hung up. The flurry of excitement in his chest stayed for only a couple seconds before Kenny ruined it by scaring the shit out of him. “So is he coming?” He asked, mouth dangerously close to Stan’s ear and hand snaked around Stan’s waist. He wrenched Kenny’s hand off as though it were diseased and pushed him away by the face.

“Yes he’s fucking coming. What the—What the fuck is wrong with you?” Kenny was trying to bite Stan’s palm, and failing. He laughed and pulled Stan’s hand off his face.

“Lemme know when he gets here so I can make you as uncomfortable as possible, dude.” Stan glared and Kenny held both his hands up in surrender as he stepped away backwards. Least-favorite Kenny needed to fuck off. This was nerve-wracking enough.

Stan swirled the ice in his cup as he waited. He kept his phone on the island countertop nestled between bags of chips, watching its black screen for any sign of life for when Kyle would need his help getting through the locked front doors. When ten minutes had passed with no notifications, Stan considered calling him back to make sure he wasn’t dead. Moments later, he was surprised to find Kyle very much alive and in front of the common area with an expression of vague confusion marring his face. He lit up when Stan made eye contact and walked over to him.

“Someone else was walking out when I was walking in and I asked for directions,” Kyle said, stopping Stan before he could ask. His cheeks and nose were cherry red from the blistering cold and they only intensified his green eyes. He had on the same scarf as the day of their not-date and a strangely out of place bright green hat. His gloves matched. Cute.

“Come on,” Stan said with a twitch of his head toward the kitchenette, “I’ll get you a drink and you can take all your shit off.”

Kenny whistled loud from the corner. “Yeah, take it off!” He hollered over the crowd, who all joined in ardently without looking up from their games. Stan felt his face turn bright red and he turned on one heel to send Kenny the deadliest glare he could muster, but the motherfucker was looking away with a sly grin on his stupid face. He knew what the fuck he was doing. Stan took a deep breath and turned back to his guest. Kyle’s face was red too, but it was probably residual, from the wind. Getting his hopes up generally set him up for failure, he had to remind himself. Kyle had slipped off his gloves and scarf, and Stan found it peculiar that he’d made no move to remove his hat. Usually the hat was the first thing to go in cold weather getup.

After Stan had shown Kyle the wide array of two-liters on the countertop, they’d stood around with cups in hand and waited for a good time to jump into everyone else’s conversation. The moment wasn’t happening and Kyle was shifting his weight between feet, looking down at his boots occasionally. “You okay dude?” Stan asked. It was unlike Kyle to act so uncertain. The guy was certain about everything.

“I don’t know.” He bit his lip. “I thought maybe it’d be a little more… intense?” Kyle waved his arms around to gesture at the congregation and Stan laughed.

“Dude, living on campus isn’t nearly as cool as it looks in the movies. Everyone here is a fucking nerd, don’t let them fool you.” Kyle snickered behind a raised hand and Stan felt a rush of satisfaction that he’d succeeded in making him laugh. He seemed to be growing more comfortable in his own shoes as time went on.

“Ayyy Kyle, dude!” Kenny swung around the corner, arm outstretched, and Kyle struggled to reciprocate a standard bro hug. You know, the stupid one where you grab one hand and pull it in all manly-like. He looked like he’d never done it before in his life, and he possibly hadn’t. “The stripping comment was just a joke, but you gonna take your hat off at least, stay a while?” He smirked as Kyle’s eyes flickered with horror and his hands flew up to his head, a subtle blush dusting his cheeks.

“Sorry, it’s habit to keep it on,” he muttered while avoiding eye contact with either of them. He pulled his hat off somewhat reluctantly, running one hand through his curls to encourage them to bounce back to their usual volume. It worked flawlessly. “I used to really hate my hair.”

“Really?” Stan asked, surprised. His hair was like, the best. It was so interesting. Curly hair seemed hard to manage but Kyle’s just kind of did what it wanted, which was ‘be effortlessly perfect’ all the time—at least to him.

“Yeah, I wore a hat basically all the time. It used to be a lot worse when I was younger because my mom would never let me fucking cut it.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair again, looking more and more self-conscious with each stroke. “It still sucks.”

“Why?” Stan asked. Maybe he was invading some sort of privacy, but Kyle didn’t seem to mind. At some point Kenny had stepped away from the conversation but Stan hadn’t noticed when.

“It’s so fucking unmanageable, you have no idea. I’m also sick of people always wanting to touch it.” His expression looked so done that Stan couldn’t help but laugh. “I don’t get the fixation, plenty of people have curly hair. I’ve kind of gotten over the hatred, but I still don’t like it.”

“Oh.” Stan smiled slightly. “I like it.” Wait, what? His mouth went on autopilot way too quickly. Kyle was making him relax into no-filter mode way too much. Stan felt dreaded regret fill his chest and constrict his breathing. Oh fuck, that was an unplanned _direct_ compliment.

Kyle was silent for an agonizing three seconds. “Really?” He asked, face incredulous, but there was the tiniest spark of happiness in his eyes and the slightest hopeful quirk to his lips.

“Yeah, I dunno.” Stan struggled to remember the English language. He resorted to gesturing frantically at Kyle’s body until he found speech again. “It, uh, suits you, I think.” That didn’t even begin to describe it, but it was a fucking start and Stan was fucking proud of that. Nervousness punched him in the face.

“Oh.” It was Kyle’s turn to become speechless. Stan savored the expression he was making. His eyes were wide and a smile was gracing his face so beautifully Stan could hardly look at him straight on. He could have _sworn_ Kyle was blushing, but he also could have been imagining it, projecting his own fucked fantasies on the situation. There was no way this had actually worked in his favor.

“Thanks.” Kyle finally said, and there was a warmth and quietness in his voice that Stan had never heard before. He let out a curt laugh. “I wish half the kids at recess could have agreed with you.”

Stan frowned at the thought of tiny-Kyle getting picked on, but focused instead on present-Kyle’s endless perfections. He was enamored with the way his freckles still shone through a reddened face and how expressive his eyes always were. They held softness now, something akin to fondness, and Stan couldn’t look away because they’d captured his full attention and _wow_ were they ever the most beautiful green Stan had ever seen. At this proximity, Stan could make out flecks of hazel like sunbursts from his pupils that intensified his gaze. They were entirely his own, their own unique pattern never able to be replicated. He doubted even the most skilled artists could capture their exact colors. They were too beautiful for two dimensions and color theory.

“Stan?” Kyle said, and he zoomed out to take in Kyle’s entire face where his nose was scrunched up in confusion. He’d definitely been caught staring. Why hadn’t Kyle caught him sooner? The tournament happening a few yards away had completely melted away. Stan decided in this moment that he liked talking one-on-one with Kyle very, very much. In a rare show of candid Kyle, he’d all but forgotten about his project. He decided all that talk was worth it, if only for this one moment not even a minute long. God, this was so worth it.

“Sorry, you wanna play?” Stan asked after clearing his throat, and Kyle snapped back into his usual confident grin. He shrugged with obviously fake indifference.

“I guess I’ll join in for a couple rounds. That’s the point of Smash Sundays, right?”

Kyle beat half the regulars into the ground effortlessly. Stan mostly watched his game face as it morphed with each move on-screen. Earlier, Kyle had draped his coat over one of the barstools in the kitchenette. His hat was stuffed hastily into one of the front pockets and growing cold, for once feeling entirely unneeded.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just wanted to make note of how much I appreciate the kudos and comments so far! You guys are the best. Thanks for your support, it means so much. <3


	6. Blanket Burritos Soothe the Soul

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan's pretty sure his impulsive decisions are going to kill him one day. Sometimes, though, they work out for the better. This is the better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've hacked and slashed this chapter more times than I can count and I'm still not 100% sold on it, but the show must go on. Hopefully you're not too disappointed! :P

Ever since November’s Smash Sunday, Kyle had texted Stan a steadily increasing amount. Where before their messages had remained vague and somewhat impersonal, now they were inundated with links to funny articles and pictures and emoticons galore. Every morning Stan would light up his screen in hopes of seeing a notification, and each time he found one he let a giddy grin wake him up. Stan was running out of space in the ‘Kyle’s Smiley Faces’ trophy case, and it was the best feeling in the world.

November’s break had just come and gone and the entire college had entered crisis mode for finals, synonymous with impending doom. Stan never understood why it seemed like everything sped up tenfold after break, like every professor had plotted this from the beginning. Start off easy and end in a sprint, every fucking class. It was exhausting.

Kyle had been absolutely right about flashcards. After forcing him to painstakingly write them out, which took for-fucking-ever, letting Kyle hold them up for him had two benefits. One, it actually helped him memorize the hundreds of anatomy terms he was required to memorize. Two, he got an excuse to look at Kyle a lot. It was a win-win for everyone involved; Kyle didn’t seem to mind helping him and actually enjoyed it, which made Stan wonder if maybe he’d be a good professor down the line too, if law school didn’t pan out.

Come to think of it, their Wednesday sessions had consisted almost entirely of helping Stan study. It wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate it since it directly influenced his rising GPA, but it seemed a bit unfair. As Stan packed away his backpack after class, he tried to recall a time he helped Kyle any significant way and came up empty. He frowned. Maybe he was being a bit selfish in all this. He clicked his phone screen on to check his messages as he walked out of his room, swiping away the notification of the short text Kyle had sent after Stan had asked to confirm their usual meeting at the unfortunate ass-crack of dawn.

 

      _You know it! ;)_

 

Yeah that’s right, he had Kyle using _winky faces_ now, _somewhat regularly_. Fucking score. Stan couldn’t help but roll his eyes at himself as a goofy smile cropped up without his permission. He was a fucking dork, and Wednesdays were the best. Every conversation with Kyle felt like a hug now. He was standoffish with everyone at first, but once he felt safe to open up, it was like they’d been friends for years. He had some sort of magic power to feel inviting, Stan swore, even though Kenny teased him relentlessly over his ‘puppy-love-vision.’

Stan let the extra spring in his step carry him through the front doors of the library and into the secluded corner that they’d claimed what felt like eons ago. It was special, just for them, and Stan took pride in that like it was a secret only they knew. In reality it was just another table, but whatever. When he got to said table, though, he was met with a blank surface and no Kyle. Stan’s eyebrows furrowed and he checked the clock. Ten o’ clock, like always. He pulled out his phone to find no new messages. Where the fuck was he?

As if on cue, a low groan from behind scared the shit out of him, and Stan bit back a girly gasp as he jumped embarrassingly high. He whirled around on one foot with a growl at the ready. “Dude what the f— Whoa, Kyle, dude. You look like shit.” He didn’t really since Stan was pretty sure it was impossible for Kyle to look any less than impeccable, but he did look paler and more tired than normal. His usually neatly pressed wardrobe looked distressed and slightly wrinkled, which was a first.

Kyle gave him his signature deadpan stare that Stan was convinced could cut steel if he tried hard enough. “Thanks for the update, Stan. I noticed.” Kyle dragged his feet and sank into the nearest chair, groaning again as he dropped his forehead into his outstretched palm.

“Hey, man, just like, go home. You didn’t have to come.” Stan’s face threatened to flush at the tiny voice in the back of his head that told him he was glad he came anyway. He shuffled his weight awkwardly between feet. “You sounded fine in your text earlier.” He added.

“That’s the magic of texting, Stan, no visual cues.” Kyle let his messenger bag slide off his shoulder and plop onto the floor. He kept one hand to his forehead and bowed his posture. “I was fine earlier anyway.”

“Then what the fuck happened, dude? You look like you died, twice.” Not _really,_ the beautiful bastard.

Kyle tried eye contact, but it looked more like a wince than anything else. “I get these migraines sometimes. They’re like headaches on steroids. It’s kinda random and it’ll pass soon. It’s just a thing that happens when I get stressed out.” He looked embarrassed and Stan wasn’t going to pry, but Kyle continued. “I’ve gotten them since I was like, thirteen. Usually they pass after a few hours so I just deal until then. Sometimes it takes a couple days though.”

“And they fuck you up like this?” Stan asked, not able to hide the worry in his tone. Kyle nodded weakly. “Man, I’m sorry.” He felt a deep sense of helplessness. He looked so drained. Kyle looked back down at the table and tented his hands over his brow to block the light. Stan put two and two together.

“So the lights suck?” Kyle nodded slightly again behind his hands. “And I’m assuming you refuse to go home.” Kyle looked up specifically to glower at him in stubborn defiance and Stan felt a little rush fly through him before Kyle retreated to his shitty hiding place again. Damn him and his incredible eyes, beautiful even in squinty brain death.

“Do you wanna come to my dorm room then?” Stan asked, not quite believing the words as they left his mouth. “I can put blankets up on the windows and we can just kinda chill until our next class.” He shrugged, but the gravity of his proposal was making his skin crawl. Kyle had never been to his dorm room before. Sure, he’d been to the building a couple times, but his actual room? That was _different._ That shit was personal.

Kyle looked up at him and his expression was so awed and hopeful that any hesitations Stan had vanished. He looked so sincere, not a hint of his usual wit in his bleary eyes, when he said in the flattest voice he’d ever mustered, “that sounds fucking incredible.”

Stan laughed but quickly cut it short with several apologies when Kyle flinched. “Here, gimme your bag— can you walk?”

“Yes I can fucking walk Stan, I’m not totally helpless.”

“Jesus okay, fine. Just checking.”

“What were you going to do, carry me?”

“Well shit I dunno Kyle, maybe!” Stan’s face flooded with red, and Kyle chuckled under his breath as they walked out of the library. Stan still kept close, just in case. He’d never seen him look so miserable and vulnerable. These migraines must hurt like a bitch. He felt lucky he hadn’t been cursed with them too.

He spent the rest of their walk preparing for what was definitely going to be the tensest two hours of his life. He prayed to god that Kenny wouldn’t be home. Oh fuck, _please_ don’t let Kenny be home. Don’t let _anybody_ be home. He remembered every single thing out of place in his room like he’d taken a picture. He had laundry to do, he had loose sheets of paper all over his floor, it was a goddamn mess, motherfucking shit fuck god _damn_. Kyle was going to judge the fuck out of him. It was all over, for sure this time. Why did he have to agree to this?

They reached the dorms and Stan fumbled with his card key before successfully swiping and unlocking the back door. Luckily, the elevators were working properly today. Half the time they broke and maintenance didn’t bother to fix them for days. It was probably against several safety codes. Nobody gave a shit since nobody actually needed them in Gallagher, but Stan didn’t want to make Kyle use three flights of stairs even if he insisted it was totally fine. “Let me have this,” he joked and Kyle laughed, “you’re always helping me, let me help you.”

“I don’t need a nurse Stan, oh my god. You’re ridiculous.”

“Hey, I’m saving your ass from fluorescent hell right now. Is that any way to speak to your savior?”

“Oh fuck off.” They laughed together and Stan bathed in the warm fuzzies that lifted his chest, proud to have evoked laughter from his crush. At some point, plain old talking with Kyle had become easier than breathing. At least, when he wasn’t suffocating on his infatuation, which was a solid half of the time. Okay, maybe not so easy. Correction, it was easy when he rolled with the punches and relaxed for once.

They reached Stan’s door and he tried desperately to play it cool but knew he was failing immediately upon opening his stupid fucking mouth. “Uh, please ignore the shit everywhere, I don’t keep it super clean and I wasn’t really expecting anybody.” Except Stan never cleaned up his room for friends. Kyle was just a special case. He started to creak open the door and paused, turning back to his waiting friend. “Actually, uh, just like, wait here, one sec.” He slipped into his room in one fluid motion and left Kyle outside, running purely on impulse.

“What the fuck, Stan!” Kyle hissed, irritation seeping into his tone, and Stan winced as he grabbed all the random clothes strewn across his floor and cleared a quick path. “I don’t give a shit if it’s messy, I give a shit if it’s _dark_ and _quiet.”_ Stan allowed himself one more deep inhale before swinging the door open again.

“Sorry,” he choked out, “I got... nervous?” Kyle rolled his eyes half-heartedly and stepped through the threshold, sweeping his gaze floor-to-ceiling. Stan froze. It felt like every aspect of his life was being evaluated in one glance. Kyle was silent for an agonizingly long period of time before he looked up at Stan with tired eyes.

“I like your poster, Terrance and Phillip was my shit in elementary school.” Stan fell unbearably deeper into crushing hell in just one sentence. “Are you gonna cover the windows like you said?” He asked. “Where should I sit?”

Stan looked around frantically as if his walls had the answers. “Um, yeah, hold up. You can just sit on my bed if you want.” Kyle raised an eyebrow but obeyed as Stan dove into his closet for a sheet. He thanked his mom a thousand times over for making him keep a thousand blankets in his dorm, even though he’d complained about it to the bitter end. He looked back and saw that Kyle had covered his eyes with his hand again, and he frowned. This was such a weird experience. Kyle was usually so loud (more like passionate) in general, but the migraine held him captive in a bizarre state of quietness. Stan decided he much preferred borderline-overconfident Kyle to sad, wounded Kyle. Sad, wounded Kyle made his heart ache.

After a long time of struggling with the blinds and swearing at the sheet and enjoying Kyle’s laughter at his expense, he finally situated it well enough to block a decent amount of light from filtering in on them. “It is done.” He turned back with hands in his hips in overdramatic triumph, and Kyle snickered.

“Thank you,” Kyle said, and even though it was spoken through a mocking laugh, he sounded genuinely grateful. Stan then held up one finger and turned back around to his closet to root through his drawers. “What?” Kyle asked, but his question was followed-up with more questions as Stan wordlessly tossed a homemade quilt over his head. Stan stifled a giggle and watched Kyle struggle to pull it off his head. When he finally tugged it over mussed curls a light blush spread across his cheeks to match his scowl. “Why?”

“It gets cold in here, and everyone likes being a blanket burrito when they feel like shit. Don’t deny it.” Stan leaned forward to take the quilt from Kyle’s hands, who stuttered in protest as he wrapped it snugly around his shoulders. For a fleeting moment his jawline brushed against Kyle’s hair and he felt a shudder go through him like a white hot flash. He quickly retreated to clamber up next to him, willing his blush to disappear. It wasn’t gonna happen. His hair smelled vaguely of peppermint or in other words, fantastic. It was soft as fuck, too. He understood why people always wanted to touch it now.

Stan watched Kyle close his eyes and yawn while tugging the blanket in on himself in a silent show of defeat. _Cute._ He leaned his head back to thump into the wall and sighed. “Thanks for letting me stay here, Stan.” He finally said. He still didn’t bother to open his eyes, and Stan assumed it was because keeping them open hurt more. Poor guy, jeez.

“Yeah, no problem.” Stan laughed nervously, stretching his arms out wide and over his head and suddenly feeling sluggish. “You wanna watch something on my laptop?”

“I’d rather not use my eyes, but thanks for the thought.” Kyle muttered. He’d pulled the blanket over his mouth and it was muffling his speech. He was taking becoming a blanket burrito very seriously. It was fucking adorable.

“Oh, yeah, duh. Okay.” Stan said. He played with his fingers as silence fell between them. This was really weird. Usually Kyle filled any silence with some sort of speech or rant, or _something._ He was eerily silent now. “Would music help?” He asked, pulling up his iTunes library on the laptop he’d already booted up before Kyle had declined his first offer.

Kyle opened his eyes just slightly to look at Stan but it was enough to allow their brilliant green to pierce his heart. Stan couldn’t help but marvel at the image of Kyle wrapped up in _his_ blanket, in _his_ room, in _his_ dorm building. He must have done something awfully amazing at some point in his life to generate enough good karma to deserve this. It was the only explanation. “As long as it isn’t death metal or some shit, it’ll be fine.” Stan snickered and clicked through his playlists.

“Nah, I have some stuff I play when I need to focus on homework that’s quieter. Some of it doesn’t have words but I still like it.” Kyle smiled and nodded.

“Then by all means, go for it.”

Stan picked a random song to start the shuffle, adjusted the volume to be gentle but not impossible to hear, and leaned back against the wall to copy Kyle. The wall felt pleasantly cool against the back of his head and he understood now why he’d stayed that position. “You wanna just take a minute to turn your brain off, dude?” He asked.

“Yeah,” Kyle breathed. Stan watched some of the tension in his shoulders release with each exhale and felt his own do the same. He was glad he could do this for him. This was worth all the worry over how messy his room was. Kyle honestly didn’t seem to care and that was comforting enough, even if the only reason he didn’t care was because his head probably felt like it was cracking open. This was nice. He could get used to this.

The rest of their time together was filled with nothing else but the gentle flow of music from his concentration playlist and the occasional clicking on his track pad as he browsed the Internet and did some homework. Their afternoon classes came and went and Stan really hoped Kyle wouldn’t kill him when he found out he’d let him miss class. Besides, he was basically sick. One sick day wouldn’t hurt. Stan was pretty sure Kyle was falling in and out of sleep, too, judging by the way he jolted upright more than once. It was cute. It was private. It was everything Stan could have hoped for. Did he mention cute?

At some point Kyle leaned over and rested his head by Stan’s shoulder, and he felt his hair tickling his neck, teasing him. Stan tried extremely hard not to freak out or die or something similar. This was the closest they’d ever gotten to each other, and he desperately, so selfishly, never wanted it to end. Kyle sighed in his delicate sleep and Stan smiled, his heart swelling with adoration. His Wednesday study session had officially been hijacked, and the subject for the day was breathing gently beside him, in his messy room, wrapped in a quilt his mother once hand-sewed.


	7. The Way to a Man's Heart Is Through His Stomach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kyle has a nasty habit of surprising him, but these surprises are so worth the late nights spent overthinking anything and everything to do with him. Stan doesn't know what's going on, but he likes it, and that's enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is loooooong. I debated cutting it in half but the scenes move directly into each other so that didn't really make sense. Don't get used to it, this is a freak accident where I got a little carried away. Enjoy!

Stan’s few friends were all local, and by that, he meant they were all on campus. The biggest perk to going to a private college was that a good chunk of the students weren’t from the surrounding area, and thus had no choice but to live in the dorms. It sucked, because sometimes Stan got stuck with shit people and shit rooms and everything in between, but it was also convenient. If all he had to do was walk a few yards to get to his friend’s house, he’d call that a success.

This was why Kyle, as a commuter, was such an anomaly to him. Some days he could _smell_ Kenny’s room from his own (he wasn’t always great at airing it out once in a while, which was definitely disgusting and by the way thank _god_ he had a single room). The difference was that Stan could not, unfortunately, smell Kyle’s room from his own. Kyle’s room was about four and a half miles south, and Stan didn’t have a car. His chances to be with Kyle were all dictated entirely by Kyle himself. He counted himself lucky that Kyle seemed to enjoy his company well enough that he showed up most days unrequested. He bet his room smelled a little like his hair, and that sounded like fucking heaven.

It was in this daze of daydreaming about Kyle’s hair and house that Stan sat dumbfounded in the passenger side of Kyle’s car. It was old lady red and looked a few years out of circulation, but the inside was pristine. Stan found no evidence that anyone had even sat in the passenger seat before, let alone any of the others. He sunk into the plush chair and tried to process the situation he’d been thrust into while groping for his seat belt. Kyle was rambling about something beside him and Stan had totally tuned him out.

That was clearly a mistake, because as soon as he clicked his seat belt in, he looked up and saw an expectant and uncharacteristically nervous stare. “Uh, sorry? I was distracted, I need you to say it all again.” He said weakly, and Kyle heaved a sigh but didn’t seem all that upset about repeating himself.

“I was just saying I’m sorry for dragging you out, but I don’t want to waste any time that could be spent with you when the semester is almost over and you’re going to be leaving for home soon.” Kyle glanced down and gripped his steering wheel and Stan felt like floating away. Kyle had been saying all these strangely sweet things lately and it was seriously killing him. He needed to stop being such a fucking tease. He looked down at his backpack wedged between his legs and played with the zipper pull on the top idly.

“Yeah, same,” he said, but the words didn’t begin to cover it. Truthfully, Stan was the most disappointed about break than he’d ever been in his life. A whole month of no homework and tests to study for was fantastic, sure, but now it meant no Kyle too, and that sucked.

Kyle took the emergency brake off and headed about four and a half miles south. Stan was about to, on a whim, meet the Broflovski household, and he wasn’t fucking ready. “My mom is gonna bother you, fair warning. She’s been begging me to bring you over forever.”

“You talk about me often?” He teased and immediately regretted, but Kyle chuckled in that way he did that felt genuine and the regret faded.

“Only when you piss me off.” Kyle glanced over and smirked and Stan caught it in the dimple on his visible cheek. This boy, Jesus Christ.

“What? When do I piss you off? I’m like, an angel to you.”

“Pfft, yeah. An angel, right. Tell me that when you actually take your schoolwork seriously.”

Stan crossed his arms over-dramatically, for effect. “Fuck off Kyle, not all of us are perfect.” He grumbled. Kyle snorted.

“Dude, you really think I’m perfect?” Fucking _yes._ “I’m flattered, but you’re wrong. I routinely forget to comb my hair in the morning and I go to the wrong lecture hall for my first class half the time. Mornings are not my friend.”

“Those are minor inconveniences, Kyle!” Stan groaned, throwing his hands up within the little space he had available in the car. “It’s not like you forget important essays and tests and shit. Like me. I’m pretty sure it’s impossible for you to fuck up as badly as I have.”

Kyle actually turned to look at him as they were stopped at a red light. “Stan, I think you’re putting me on what is looking dangerously like a pedestal.” He raised his eyebrows before turning back to the road to follow traffic. Stan scoffed at the idea. There was no pedestal, he _was_ perfect. He just didn’t get it.

They took a handful more turns in silence before rolling lazily through a perfect suburban neighborhood filled with cookie cutter upper-middle class houses. Snow was neatly brushed over the branches of small trees and shrubs dotting the road. He bet it looked beautiful in late summer when things were just starting to bronze, but the snow had its own breathtaking quality to it. Snow made Stan think of deafening silence and warm fuzzies and distant birds chirping, heralds to the rising sun. Kyle’s neighborhood embodied those thoughts so well; he felt all the elements he loved envelop him in a welcoming hug.

“I have an anxiety disorder,” Kyle said, quietly.

The words cut Stan’s concentration on counting the trees like a knife. Kyle spoke as though it was the world’s darkest secret, and Stan watched his knuckles whiten over the steering wheel. He wanted to reach over and touch his hands to comfort them, but he didn’t know how it would come off.

“Oh,” Stan said, and he saw Kyle’s face visibly fall further as he avoided eye contact. _Fuck, wait_. “I know a guy with something similar, I think. It’s not a big deal, it’s not like you can control that sort of thing. I’m depressed pretty much always. I get it.” Stan shrugged and Kyle gawked. They’d stopped and Stan only just realized they’d pulled into a driveway. He didn’t want to move yet, though, and neither did Kyle. He searched him with wild green eyes as though looking for the lie, and the fact that they’d just revealed deep insecurities to each other sunk in slowly.

“And that’s… Okay? With you?” Kyle finally said, turning the words over and over and Stan wanted to hug him and tell him that of course it was okay, of course, but he knew that was too much and nodded instead. He sighed and shrugged again.

“That’s not a thing that should matter, dude. My doctors always tell me it’s an illness just like any other illness, and it’s bullshit that anybody treats it differently. I think they’re right.” Stan smiled as reassuringly as he could muster, and Kyle’s face lit up through the vulnerability that was personally wounding Stan from across the center console. “Something dumb like that isn’t gonna knock you off that pedestal, sorry to say.”

Kyle smacked him and he snickered. “Shut up oh my god,” he groaned, but his creeping smile betrayed him. He suddenly reached over and wrapped his arms tightly around Stan’s shoulders. Stan’s breath was stolen when he nuzzled his head into his neck. “Thanks,” he whispered, and Stan remembered how to be a human enough to hug him back. He let himself lean into every point their bodies touched and closed his eyes, as though nothing he could see could compare to the feeling of Kyle’s amber eyelashes fluttering against his jugular.

“Don’t mention it,” he breathed, and they pulled back enough to make eye contact. In that moment, Kyle’s eyes and cheeks blazing not half a foot away from his own, Stan thought this might be the scene in the movie where they’d kiss. He froze up and tried very hard to tell himself that just being friends was enough, over and over in his head. It was something he’d torture himself over later when he was trying to fall asleep at night, as was now routine.

Kyle startled him when he lurched forward just slightly; their faces were only a few inches apart before he pulled away as though he’d burned himself from their contact. Stan suspected, from the way his eyes were wide and his cheeks were turning red, that he surprised himself just as much. Stan started to click things into place, slowly and disbelieving. It couldn’t have been, no. Kyle was better than him in like, every way. He had to know he could do so much better, and it had been some act of desperation. Yeah. Stan deflated painfully as Kyle kicked open his door and climbed out. “Um, let’s get inside. It’s getting cold out here.” Kyle was avoiding eye contact. Stan stood on shaky legs. Kyle’d confused the hell out of him without even saying anything. Kyle sucked.

They shuffled through the front door and Stan copied Kyle’s movements as he methodically removed his boots and tapped snow off them outside. Kyle closed the door with a noisy rattle from the welcome sign hanging off the door. “Ma!” He called out, and Stan thought it was incredibly cute that he called his mother ‘ma.’ There was no answer and Kyle grunted, looking back at Stan with furrowed eyebrows. “She’s probably downstairs or something. Gimme a sec.”

“Hey, wait,“ Stan said feebly, but Kyle had already dashed to one of the doors and stumbled down a staircase out of view. He sighed and shuffled from foot to foot, in that awkward stage of waiting when you were somewhere unfamiliar with nothing to do or look at. He started picking at the pills on his old gloves. He tried not to think about the weird thing Kyle did in the car two minutes ago.

“Hey,” a voice said, and Stan swore with a jump. “Woah dude chill, I’m right here.” Stan craned his neck and found that the voice was, indeed, right there. On the couch a few paces away sat a boy with dark hair and darker eyes, lazily swiping through his phone with his feet propped up on the coffee table.

“You must be… Ike?” Stan said, remembering from several offhand comments that Kyle had a younger brother and making an educated guess that this was said brother.

“Yeah, and you must be Stan.” He looked up at him and shot Stan a sly grin, and Stan was immediately reminded of Kenny by the mischief in the kid’s eye.

“How’d you know my name?” Stan asked.

“Same reason you know my name probably. Kyle.” Ike shrugged and sat up straight to offer a hand, and Stan walked the few steps forward to shake it. Apparently he _had_ talked about him often. Ike had a firm shake that he paired with that mysterious grin and it would have intimidated him if he didn’t also look like he was still in high school.

Ike studied him intently for several extremely prolonged seconds and Stan felt exactly like he was stuck in a body scanner at an airport. He stared right into his eyes, and Stan held eye contact as long as he could before breaking away and clearing his throat. “Um…” Ike finally looked away to laugh and Stan felt a small flare of annoyance and anxiety in his chest. “What?”

“It’s nothing, it’s just,” Ike snorted, “I can’t believe he was honestly not sure about you.”

Stan’s eyes narrowed. “What are you talking about?”

Ike waved him off with a loose hand. “Don’t worry about it, my brother’s just an idiot. Please carry on.” Stan scowled because he knew Kyle was the smartest person ever and Ike was just being an annoying little turd. Then he had to ask himself when he’d decided to downgrade to middle school level maturity.

Stan never got a chance to respond, because the door to the downstairs flung open and Stan could very faintly hear Kyle yelling “ma, hold on!” Nothing could get past the large woman bursting through the door though, and the scarlet-red hair piled up at the top of her head swung as she turned to look at him. Her eyes were clearly where Kyle’s came from and they glittered with overzealousness that seemed to embody her entire existence. One look and Stan felt like he was waking up wrapped up in warm blankets in front of a fireplace. Classic mom feeling.

“Oh, you must be Kyle’s little friend, Stanley!” She said, and Stan had to temporarily reprogram his brain to understand her thick Jersey accent. She strutted over to him and Stan tried to hold in his laughter at the shocked look on Kyle’s face trailing behind her. She wrapped him up in a giant hug and the warm feeling increased tenfold. “It is so nice to finally meet you! Kyle has talked an awful lot about you, you know, and we’ve just been so curious!” Ike snorted behind her and Kyle wiped his hands down his face in defeat. She turned back to Kyle, who peeked through his fingers at her with obvious exasperation.

“You should have brought him over sooner bubbe, the semester is almost over! Oh, and he’s so handsome too!” She grabbed his cheek and gave it a gentle tug and Stan finally let himself laugh, overcome with the happy embarrassment she was inflicting on everyone in the room. Stan caught a little smile in the corner of Kyle’s mouth that he was trying to hide behind his palm.

“It’s nice to meet you, Mrs. Broflovski.” Stan said, and she released his cheek in favor of gripping both his arms and looking lovingly up to him.

“Please, call me Sheila!” She said. Stan wondered if everything she said ended in an exclamation point. “Ike!” She yelled, and said boy flinched.

“Ugh, mom! I’m right here, Jesus Christ!”

“Feet,” she warned sternly, and Ike slowly lowered his legs off the coffee table and on the ground. “Ike, did you introduce yourself to Kyle’s friend?”

Ike rolled his eyes. “Yes mom, I even shook his hand.” Sheila nodded as though that was exactly what was expected of him, and Stan resisted the urge to gulp nervously. He wasn’t sure if he’d survive with a mother like her. His parents were easygoing in comparison.

“Are you staying for dinner?” The R was permanently dropped from her vernacular. “I’m sure Gerald would like to say hello too. Gerald!” She called up the stairs and finally released Stan’s arms in favor of the staircase. Kyle rushed forward but stopped himself before he got too close. Stan wished he hadn’t.

“I’m really sorry dude,” he muttered under the pounding of her feet on creaky steps, “I know she can be super overbearing but I swear she’s just really loud and trying—“

“Kyle, dude, it’s fine.” Ike was still snickering behind them and Kyle turned around with a murderous glare, which shut him up instantly. “I get it. Do you wanna grab your stuff and head out of here?”

“Wait,” Ike piped up, “you just got here and you’re just gonna leave?” He stood, phone temporarily discarded on the couch cushions. “Come on, you’ve _gotta_ stay for dinner. Kyle would _love_ that.”

“Ike shut _up_ ,” Kyle growled, and Stan looked uneasily between both boys, unsure of what to do or say. What did he even mean? This day was turning out to be incredibly confusing. Maybe he needed more advice from Butters. He always kind of knew what to do with this shit.

Before Stan got a chance to pull out his phone, the man he assumed to be Gerald and Kyle’s father stepped down to the foyer. His footsteps were feather-light compared to his wife’s, and his demeanor seemed to match. He held out a hand and Stan immediately shook it. “Stanley, was it? Sheila was just telling me about you. You can call me Gerald.” He smiled, and Stan had to wonder if there was a side to him he couldn’t see behind his meek but confident appearance. Stan bet political discussions over the dinner table here were downright brutal.

“Please, you can just call me Stan.” He smiled back. He snuck a glance at Kyle, who was smiling himself in an oddly shy sort of way that he probably thought was hidden by his mother’s wild hair. All this new information was giving him a headache.

Gerald clapped a hand on his back. “Well, I hope you’re hungry. Sheila always cooks for ten.”

Sheila held up a snappish finger. “Leftovers are convenient lunches!” Stan chuckled genially and Sheila took it as praise, fluffing herself up with the ego boost. “My cooking comes from your great grandparents boys, and it keeps for ages. It’s traditional!”

“Yeah we know ma,” Kyle said, and Stan guessed he knew a history lesson was incoming because he seemed intent to change the subject. “We really should get going, though. Finals are coming up soon, you know how it is.” He almost ended on a question, shrugging his shoulders in a weak attempt to sell the excuse. Sheila clearly wasn’t having it.

“I’m not letting you two go off studying on empty stomachs. It’s no trouble at all to have you Stan, please allow me to treat you! You must be sick of the food at that horrible cafeteria!” Stan had to admit that he was.

Gerald stepped in and shook his shoulder. “You’d better stay, son, you’ll break her heart.” Sheila smacked Gerald’s arm and Stan laughed. It reminded him of some sort of family sitcom, the way they interacted. He could feel the love from miles away. Kyle was inching closer to him with each sentence and he looked ready to interject again, but Stan didn’t give him the chance.

“I’d love to,” he replied, and Sheila lit up like a kid in a candy store. Kyle gave him a look that implied aghast betrayal, but he shrugged his shoulders. “I can’t say no,” he said honestly, and Kyle’s face softened, a gentle and beautiful smile gracing his lips. It appeared he’d been forgiven.

“Perfect!” Sheila busied herself with pushing back to the kitchen and they followed her, an entourage to her performance. Stan found conversation to flow easily between all of them, and it took no time at all to start speaking like they’d known each other for years. Even Ike seemed to loosen up by the time dishes had settled from passing, little quips that earned him stern stares from his mother peppered into the conversation. Every time Stan looked up Kyle was already looking at him. He kept averting his eyes quickly when he’d been caught.

The food was truly incredible, and especially when compared to the dining hall’s sad excuse for a nutritional meal. He felt safe to say she outdid his own mother and father by a mile, but he’d never say it out loud. They ate and chatted and Stan told them about school and his family and friends and Kyle just kept looking at him, staring while he talked. It occurred to him that maybe he didn’t talk about himself very much, and Kyle was trying to take it all in for the first time at the same time as his family. He felt a little guilty at the realization, but at least this way it didn’t have to come out through awkward probing questions only parents could get away with. He flashed Kyle a quick smile, who returned it with reddened cheeks under scattered freckles. Stan had to agree that it was getting a little warm in there, with all the bodies in one room and the oven still leaking heat.

When the dishes were cleared and Sheila finally allowed them to step away, they headed for Kyle’s room. It was everything he’d envisioned but a little messier, and he appreciated that _so_ much because he suddenly didn’t feel so bad about his own cluttered dorm room. Stan tried to focus but was struggling immensely and he wasn’t sure if it was because his room really did smell a little like his hair or because he’d just gotten bombarded with the boisterous personalities of Kyle’s family. He figured a little bit of both.

Kyle got tired of asking him the same study questions twice and eventually asked if he just wanted to hang out instead. He readily agreed. They sat entirely too close to each other so that their elbows kept banging while they fucked with their controllers, and they stayed that close when they switched to watching random documentaries on Netflix. Stan couldn’t lie, it was perfect, and he fell in love with the way the sun set in Kyle’s room like how he fell in love with how it set on Kyle in his own. He fell in love with the way Kyle curled his toes back and forth while he concentrated on a video game, and how he combed his hair back with his fingers over and over again. He fell in love with the way he looked out of the corner of his eye, because he dared not look at Kyle directly for fear of truly getting lost in his eyes. They drifted asleep halfway through a documentary about space, and Stan woke up first several hours later into the darkness of night in full swing. Kyle was breathing deeply with his head in the crook of his neck.

Stan fell in love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted an excuse to write Kyle's family. They're so cute!


	8. Prepping to Fail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The semester is ending and so is Stan's life, it seems. Self-destructing is a skill he's sure he's mastered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank all of you for helping me surpass 100 kudos and 1,000 hits since I last updated. Thank you all so so much for reading and for all your lovely comments. I couldn't have done this without you!
> 
> I'm sorry I ended up a little behind, I was kind of unintentionally following the real-life timeline while updating this but now I'm a bit off-sync since most college semesters are done before the holidays begin. I hope you don't mind horribly. The next couple chapters are short due to a natural stopping point. Hope you enjoy, and I hope you're having a happy holiday season!

Finals were officially one week away. To say he was panicking wouldn’t cover it. Stan was losing his grip over this fucking anatomy exam. His bed was covered in loose papers, handmade study guides and his open textbook. His calming playlist was doing nothing to calm him down as he skimmed over another one of his graded quizzes. He couldn’t stop his leg from bouncing, his body attempting to redirect the restlessness anxiety brought. He took a quick breath that he tried to let out slowly.

A hand shot up from the foot of his bed soundlessly with a flashcard pointed up at him. He squinted to make out the words written in pink highlighter and accessed the database buried deep in his brain.

“Buccal?”

“Correct.” The flashcard turned around with a skillful flick of the wrist to reveal that he had indeed been right and fell out of his line of sight. Stan heard the shuffling of his giant stack of index cards from the floor. A new one quickly took its place, and Stan squinted a little harder than usual.

“Uh… Costal?” He trailed off, feeling his eyebrows thread with uncertainty.

“Is that your final answer?” The disembodied hand asked, and Stan groaned.

“Aw, I fucking hate it when game shows do that shit. Fuck you for feeding into my doubt.” Laughter rumbled from beneath him. Stan tapped his pencil eraser on his chin and carefully considered his answer, as though it held the power of life and death. It may as well for how stressed out this fucking class was making him. “Yeah, costal, final answer.”

“Nice.” His flashcard flipped again to confirm his answer had been correct, and the hand returned to the giant stack. Kyle just barely peeked out from beneath the mattress, but Stan could see his non-flashcard-holding hand darting over paper furiously. He’d been scribbling in his own notebook all afternoon, ever since setting up camp on Stan’s floor despite Stan’s protesting. He’d claimed it left more room for Stan to spread out his study materials. Honestly, Stan was just disappointed to have lost the chance to sit next to each other on his bed again.

Stan gnawed on his lip as he turned his attention back to the quiz. He went over a question he got wrong twice. “I think you’re gonna ace this test.” Kyle paused in his feverish writing and turned to look at him, red curls swaying with the motion.

“You think?”

“Well,” Kyle said, his tone higher in fake nonchalance, “if I’m involved in your study habits, it’d be near impossible to fail.” His smile turned mischievous and spread to Stan as though contagious, and he threw one of his pillows right at his face. The ‘oomph’ sound he made was extremely satisfying.

They fell back into comfortable silence punctuated only by acoustic covers and the occasional orchestra and Kyle relented on the flashcard flow, instead writing mysterious notes into his notebook until nearly filling a page. Stan was curious, but he couldn’t get a clear shot of his notes without leaning over and giving himself away. A quick glance also tempted his brain into mentioning that Kyle’s head was perfectly situated so his hair was like, _right there,_ and Stan could totally touch it if he tried. He stared into it and studied each tight ringlet haloed by sunlight squeezing through the blinds. God, he wanted to touch it _so bad._ Why was this the thing he got fixated on? Kyle had specifically complained about that, he reminded himself for the millionth time, and he forced his twitching hand back to his paper with wistful sadness in the back of his mind. Maybe one day, if he could actually get his shit together.

Kyle dragged him from his hypnosis when he suddenly turned away from the bed and around to face Stan. He looked contemplative, but worried. “I heard someone is campaigning against me.” He crossed his legs and let his notebook fall into his lap with his limp arms.

“What?” Stan wrinkled his nose. “No way.”

“Yeah, I don’t really know why. Getting this shit stopped only helps us.” Kyle frowned and Stan felt the familiar sinking in his chest whenever he displayed any negative emotion. Frowning was one of the worst ones, but vulnerability was top tier soul crushing.

“You think it’s a student?”

“I think so. I just heard about it through the grapevine. Annie let me know she’d heard whispers.”

Stan hummed as he processed the words in his brain. Everything felt significantly slowed down after spending so long staring at his own shit handwriting. “What’re you gonna do about it?”

Kyle raised a hand to his chin and covered his mouth, muffling an “I don’t know.” He let his hand slide off his face with a sigh and slouched forward into his lap. “All I can do is polish the presentation. I have no idea what their angle is, but I’m suspecting it has something to do with school budget. Why else would someone want to keep it?”

“I dunno.” Stan shrugged, unhelpful in every way and only half listening.

“I’m asking for some of the more dedicated people to help, but we’re kinda coming up empty, dude. Have you thought of what you’re bringing yet? I know you’ve been busy with schoolwork so I haven’t bothered you about it, but now I’m getting a little nervous about the whole thing. I was—”

“Wait, hold up.” Stan felt his entire body freeze. What was he talking about? Bring? Bring what where? “What am I doing?”

Kyle’s eyes grew wide with surprise. “Well, I figured since you’ve been here for all of it, you’d like your own bit in the proposal. You’ve been with me since the very beginning.” He flashed a toothy smile but Stan couldn’t enjoy it as his blood ran cold. No no no. This wasn’t part of the plan.

“I was thinking about how it could focus on what you told me, how you don’t have a lot of writing to do for your classes but you still need to print out a lot of articles and study guides and shit,” Kyle continued, but Stan was barely listening. His mind was elsewhere. Fuck, Butters had been right, he should have told him ages ago. _Butters was right._

Stan knew that the right thing to do was to tell Kyle no. He’d strung him along this long, and for what? More time with him? His own selfish desires? What the fuck was wrong with him?

Stan knew all this and thought all of it all at once, but his mouth defied his logic in the cruelest way, in spite of it all: “Yeah. I can come up with something.”

“Cool!” Kyle’s eyes crinkled with his smile and a flash of the late afternoon sun lit them ablaze. The stab in Stan’s abdomen wasn’t good this time. What am I doing. Why am I doing this. All his questions were painfully rhetorical.

“I can probably put you in after Annie’s short bit on the bullshit it causes for students writing thesis papers,” Kyle continued, oblivious to the tornado wreaking havoc through Stan’s chest. “Did you know that some of them have a 20 page _minimum?_ Brutal, dude. I’m kind of excited for it, though. My reports are always lengthy anyway. You wanna take a pizza and Street Fighter break? You’ve been at it a while and it’ll stop being helpful soon, according to those studies or whatever.”

Kyle looked up from his notebook and Stan ended up looking directly into his warm gaze. Intense green simmered in the clashing orange of late sunlight. In that moment, full of soul-crushing guilt for his own selfishness, Stan wanted to tell him everything. He wanted so much to tell Kyle that he wasn’t interested, that he’d only pretended to get him to hang out with him, that he hadn’t been genuine with him for at least half of their current friendship. He wanted to confess two things, that not only had he been a piece of shit, but he’d also kind of fallen in love with him in the process. Stan was running his lie on autopilot at this point, and he wanted to confess to Kyle so badly, but the clenching in his stomach was seriously threatening vomit and he didn’t think he would be able to hold it in this time if he followed through.

Kyle frowned and Stan mourned. “You okay dude? You just got really sad-looking. Do you wanna just quit for the day? I can go—”

“No, don’t,” Stan quickly cut him off, not fully able to resist the urge to reach an arm out to grab him as though he’d disappear. Kyle was stunned. Stan felt a cold sweat wipe down his neck. He’d sounded too desperate, because he was desperate. God, how pathetic. Backpedal like hell Marsh, you’re already in deep anyway. “I mean, it’s fine. I’m good. I wanna keep going. Pizza sounds awesome.”

Kyle hesitated for a long moment, but he relaxed back into sitting cross-legged on Stan’s floor. His smile grew lazy in the most beautiful way Stan had ever seen, but he couldn’t enjoy it. Not when he felt like he’d just lied to him fifty times over. The sun cast brilliant shadows across his form and he looked like nothing less than a work of art. The voice in the back of Stan’s head reminded him that this was why he was lying. He wasn’t sure if it was still worth it.

“Great! I’m buying. Fire up that shit while I order.”


	9. Forethought Is Not Your Color

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All good things come to an end.

Stan felt every step forward reverberate through his entire body as he headed toward the lecture hall where his final exam would be in twenty-five minutes. He wanted to be early to leave enough time to convince a classmate to cram with him last minute. His flashcards were carefully rubber-banded together, the same as how Kyle had left them after their last study session. He chewed on his chapped lips at the memory.

He’d agreed to do a part in Kyle’s presentation for him that day. Before that moment it had just been another pleasant, quiet afternoon he’d been excited to spend in Kyle’s presence. After agreeing to something he definitely did not want to do, the rest of their time together felt like a blur. He wondered if it’d even happened, if maybe he’d just time travelled past all of it to his fitful sleep that night or it was a bad dream. Reality stated Kyle had stayed for pizza and gaming, though, and Stan spent the entire time wishing he could take his words back but failing to have the balls to do so.

Kyle had texted him about it three times since then. All three times he’d come up with a bullshit excuse for not having anything to say. Kyle never pushed him even though Stan knew that it was bothering him to have his uncertainty stuck on the table. He was at a standstill with no idea what to do next. Whip something up half-assed, he supposed, but the idea filled him with dreaded guilt just like every thought involving Kyle did lately. He’d been so enamored with this idea of what Kyle wanted that he’d kept up an entire façade for most of the semester. He’d pretended to listen to him more times than he’d actually, truly listened. It made him feel empty inside.

His phone vibrated in his pocket, and Stan pulled off a glove to slide it open. The cold bit his fingers immediately. It was a short text from the source of his worrying.

     _Hey can I call you?_

It was very unlike him, Stan realized with a frown. Kyle didn’t like calling very much since he was often too busy to devote all his attention to a verbal conversation. He could send texts between tasks much easier. Stan suspected he also just hated phone calls. It must be serious. He pulled the other glove off to send him a quick confirmation, and his phone was ringing seconds after it was delivered.

“Hello?”

_“Hey dude, thanks,”_ Kyle said, and he sounded like he’d run a marathon. There was something else in his tone though that Stan couldn’t quite translate. _“I didn’t feel like angry typing the whole thing but I’m fucking_ pissed _.”_ Apparently it was anger he missed.

Stan stopped walking to lean against the freezing brick wall of his lecture hall’s building. He noted the time. He had twenty minutes before the test. He decided that since he’d failed to give Kyle his real attention half the time anyway, he might as well give him the time of day now. Fuck the cramming. He didn’t really deserve the good grade anyway. “What happened, dude?”

_“It’s the fucking— I met the guy who’s making a counterargument against me. He’s such a fucking piece of_ shit _Stan, I can’t_ stand _him.”_

“Woah,” Stan said, and he held a hand up as though Kyle was right in front of him and he was calming a raging bull. “How much did you get to talk to this guy to already reach that conclusion?”

_“He was the most condescending asshole I’ve had the displeasure of speaking to. I don’t know how he knew but he managed to sneak subtly anti-Semitic comments into everything he said. He had a smart mouth too, but I think he’s actually pretty fucking stupid. A schmoozer. He’s gonna fuck our whole proposal up Stan.”_ Stan stiffened at the word ‘our.’ At one point, the little word would have brought him pure joy; this time, it drowned him with immeasurable guilt. Should he have known Kyle was Jewish? He couldn’t remember, which only drove the guilt-stake in deeper.

“Do you know what his counterargument is?”

Kyle sighed, grainy over the shoddy signal. _“No, but I think we were right about the budget thing. Goddammit, I don’t have a strong case for that point. The main focus is on_ morality _, not money. Fucking hell.”_

“Dude, how fucking complicated is your proposal even? How have you had time for this?”

There was a pause and Stan pulled his phone away from his ear to check that he hadn’t been disconnected before Kyle responded. _“Stan, what the fuck do you think I’ve been doing whenever we’re studying together?”_ Stan’s breath caught in his throat. _“I’ve been talking to you about it the whole fucking time. What, were you just not listening?”_

Yes.

Stan felt a cold chill wash over him that had nothing to do with the weather. Kyle’s angry voice was being turned on him. Kyle’s magical spotlight power was terrifying when it was done in anger; Stan was finding that out in real time. He was so screwed. So, so screwed, and yet, his stupid fucking mouth and heart went on the defensive.

“I went to all your meetings, didn’t I?” He said, feeling his mind curl in on itself as all rational thought slowly shut itself down.

_“Sure you did, yeah, but— do you even know what my proposal entails? By your questioning it sounds like you don’t. A solid half of the people who came to my meetings know at least that much Stan, and they don’t spend_ every fucking Wednesday _with me!”_ He paused, but not long enough for Stan to reply. _“You know what, you’ve never really participated in meetings or seemed interested. Did you wait until the last second to tell me that actually you don’t give a shit? Holy shit, how did I not notice this?”_

“I don’t—shit—no, that’s not it, I do care,” Stan spoke quickly as though his words were burning up the back of his throat, feverish in both mind and body. “I do care, just not really—not the same way! I care because you care.”

He could tell he’d caught Kyle off guard, because he took a moment to reply. In that moment, Stan felt his stomach lurch. No, he had to hold it in. He had to lie in his fucking grave now. Finally, Kyle spoke. _“Then you don’t_ really _care?_ ”

Stan sighed, feeling the weight of his confused guilt suffocate him. Breathing became more difficult and the world threatened to spin. At the same time, he felt irritation permeate the fear. He couldn’t stop. “If you _really_ want to separate caring about you and caring about your fucking pet project, then no, I don’t care, Kyle. Nothing is going to come of it anyway.” He knew that was crossing a line somewhere in his head but everything was so fogged by panic that he couldn’t distinguish it. His fucking mouth had to keep running. He’d been holding this in too long.

_“…What do you mean?”_ Kyle finally said, and Stan felt fury flicker from his voice like the flame he always carried. All of Stan’s inhibitions left him. In fight or flight, he chose fight.

“Jesus, Kyle, you know how this school works. They’re not going to give a shit about your proposal because this gets them free money, and no amount of budget rearrangement is going to convince them to drop a profit. _Everybody_ needs printers Kyle, _that’s_ how they get away with it, and a handful of angry students can’t do jack _shit_ about it!”

Silence. Lots of crackling silence. Enough for Stan to process what he’d just said. His knees felt weak and he leaned against the building for support, certain he really was going to hurl right then and there. He’d just ruined everything, _everything_. He could have addressed this like two fucking adults any of the past fifty-eight days he’d known him. It was all a lie, though. Stan was just a big fat lie standing in Kyle’s way.

_“I see.”_ Kyle’s voice was a unique type of stony that felt both like ice around Stan’s heart and the flames of hell at his feet. It was mind numbing. Stan was shutting down, slowly but surely. He couldn’t feel his fingers wrapped around his phone.

He regained his voice after much too long of a silence. “Fuck, Kyle, I’m sorry, I just—“

_"No, you know what? This is_ fine _. You’ve made it pretty clear how you really feel. One less person can’t hurt, right? A handful is still just a handful, isn’t it?”_

“Kyle, come on—“

_“No Stan, you can fuck right off.”_ The world was surely ending. It was the only explanation. Kyle was livid with him, and he held grudges. This was it. Enough silence passed where Stan felt like he was actually going to die from the pain in his stomach before he heard from him again. _“You know what, I’m done with this. Good luck on your final.”_ He was hissing through clenched teeth. He was furious.

“No, Kyle, wait—“

Kyle hung up.

He really did vomit this time. He barely made it to the men’s restroom. He’d fucked up, big time, no turning back, and it proved too much for his entire body to handle.

His phone showed him five minutes late by the time he’d toweled dry his face from an uncomfortable bathroom sink wash. He walked to the lecture hall in a daze. Luckily, the professor still let him in. He couldn’t concentrate on a damn thing.

The rest of the day was spent numbly packing his belongings into duffel bags for intersession. It had been his last test. His text conversation still had Kyle’s _Good luck! :)_ followed by the damning request for a phone call. It felt wrong to try to text him after that. He’d clearly wounded some part of him, even if Stan thought he was being a little overdramatic. He guessed he couldn’t really blame him. Kyle deserved better anyway.

The day after Christmas, he found out he’d gotten an A- on his final and his GPA raised by 0.4, basically by a miracle. Kyle’d been right about flashcards and diligent study sessions. He probably would’ve been proud of him. The month passed slowly but nothing seemed to stick, and Stan wasn’t entirely convinced that the dates were changing at all. Depression was starting to kick his ass again, no doubt instigated by his own bullshit and exacerbated by the dismal weather. Fuck Kyle and his perfect face and perfect everything. Everyone ushered in a new year eagerly but Stan yearned for the old one back.

The first week of January passed as slowly as the rest. Friday, the sixth, was the date of the meeting Kyle was presenting at. Stan at least remembered that. He wondered how it’d gone, wondered if it’d be weird to wish him good luck in the wake of their total silence. He decided it was. Their conversation remained stamped a whole year behind.

“So what are you gonna do? You’ll probably run into him at some point, dude.” Kenny said, bouncing a stress ball back and forth on the wide wooden post of Stan’s bed from against his dorm room’s door.

Stan let out a long, heavy breath, rolling his head against the wall to stare at the slats of his blinds and remember the way they used to paint a masterpiece on Kyle’s face. He wondered what the colors of January’s sunset would’ve looked like draped over golden eyelashes. “I don’t know,” he said, and Kenny asked no more.


	10. Local Know-It-All Fails to Know It All

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Moving on' isn't really a thing Stan is interested in learning how to do. Except, maybe it is, but he wants to skip all the hard parts and go back to when his stomach didn't hurt at the mere mention of him. Oh, and he guessed Butters could come too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait! This chapter got really really long so I split it into three short chapters that I'll post relatively close to each other but not at once, hope that's okay. Enjoy!

Stan thought he’d done a pretty solid job of starting the semester off on the right foot, considering the fact that his heart felt nowhere near in it. It wasn’t even in the general vicinity, to be honest; it was miles upon miles away where he felt nothing at all, but luckily years of living with depression had taught him how to function when emotionally numb. So far only one of his professors seemed out of their mind and/or unprepared for the semester, and his classmates weren’t awful yet.

He looked down and clicked his phone on, swiping his way to its built-in calendar. Only… fifteen more weeks to go. Great. He groaned and let his cheek puddle into his left palm. He allowed himself to stare off into space a moment longer before deciding he was being openly rude, and he returned his attention to Butters, who was quite unfortunately chattering on in front of him as though he’d never lost his attention.

In a moment of emotional weakness three days prior, he’d stupidly unpacked his angst all over him via text. Butters was the painfully sympathetic type and he’d insisted on spending time with him to ‘talk it out’ some more. Stan felt like a dick to decline, so he made feeble plans to sit together in the dining hall between classes on Tuesday. He’d hoped he’d played it loose enough that it could easily slide through the cracks and never come to fruition, but Butters was a persistent little bastard when he wanted something. He was also just really hard to say no to.

“Well Stan, I think it’s just great that you’re tryin’ t’ move on, an’ focus on your studies a bit more.” Butters beamed at him, as if he knew Stan had drowned him out almost entirely before now and he was proud to have finally caught his attention.

“It doesn’t feel super great,” Stan muttered, stabbing at his plate half-full of a lackluster salad with too much dressing. “I fucked him over and now I don’t even get to say sorry. I doubt he’d come within a hundred yards of me at this point if he could help it.”

“Aww, Stan, I don’t think that’s true.” Butters shook his head. Stan pushed his plate away, giving up on wanting to eat anymore. It was kind of funny that Kyle still made his stomach so queasy, no matter how their relationship stood. They didn’t really have one anymore, if the texts meant anything. Or lack thereof. “I think he may just be sore at ya for a bit, but I think he’ll come ‘round.”

“Oh yeah?” Stan rolled his eyes a bit at the notion. “How could he, if he won’t even talk to me?”

Butters seemed to turn over his words a few times in his head before speaking them, a thoughtful look glossing over his eyes and furrowing his brow. “Well, are _you_ tryin’ to talk to him?”

Stan’s shoulders dropped, and he sighed. “No.” He was way too afraid to try. He’d tripped a landmine and now every step felt like a death sentence. His mom taught him when he was little that the easiest way to avoid getting more hurt was to stand in one spot, which was what he’d been successfully doing for over a month. Butters probably wasn’t gonna understand or change that.

“If you don’t talk to him, things can’t get better, Stan. I think he may be waiting for an apology.” Butters’ smile was warm, and Stan tried to return it weakly. “I think you have it in you. Heck, if you managed t’ get so attached in the first place, I can’t imagine it’d be impossible to rekindle what’s already there. Kyle’s just hurt, an’ he has a reason to be, but I think maybe it’s time to try reachin’ out again. At least maybe a little.”

Butters was right, just like always, and Stan held in another sigh. “And how should I do that? I can’t just be like ‘hey Kyle, nice weather we’re having, by the way do you hate me?’ He’d teleport to me and punch me right in the fucking face. He’d find the technology to do it, I’m terrified he’d do anything to seal a grudge.”

“I don’t see why you can’t at least try to say hello.” He pointed at Stan’s phone, which he was clicking on and off out of nervous habit. “Maybe you could delete all your messages, and it’d be like starting over?”

Stan jerked his phone to his chest without thinking, and he lowered it back on the table in front of him slowly as though it could diffuse the embarrassment of his reaction. As much as it sucked, the old text messages between them actually acted kind of like a crutch sometimes, when his sadness kept him up too late to do anything else but scroll and scroll and scroll. It was the last little piece of Kyle that he could hold onto, for the time being, and he was absolutely not going to throw that away. Luckily Butters got the message without him needing to verbalize it. “I would try somethin’ real simple, you know. Like maybe a ‘hello, happy new year.’ Sometimes exes do that, wish each other good holidays and such.”

“We were never even dating, Butters,” Stan grumbled, and he lowered his head into his crossed arms in shame. Kyle had only ever been a friend that he fantasized about holding and kissing regularly, and now it seemed that even a fantasy was totally out the window. It felt like such a hopeless cause that Stan felt a hole hollowing itself out of his heart bit by bit with each passing moment his inbox stayed empty.

“Stan, you want me to tell you what I really think?” Butters asked, wincing even though his eyes stayed firmly on Stan’s. He flicked his gaze up from his stagnant phone and caught the severity in his eyes, and nodded his head once. Butters took a nice, long breath.

“You thought Kyle was bein’ a bit overdramatic about the whole thing, but gee, Stan, so are you!” Butters’ eyes hardened into an immovable glare and Stan sat straight up, thrown off guard by his commanding tone of voice. “It really ain’t that bad, an’ I betcha if you just set aside all this silly angst you could go back to bein’ great friends! And I don’t think dating is off the table neither.” Butters frowned and a fraction of his usual innocence shined through it. “If you think a little drama is enough to stop somethin’ you clearly thought was special, why, maybe you’ve got a little more growin’ up to do yourself.” He folded his arms in front of him tersely. Stan gulped.

“You’re probably right—“

“No, mister, I _am_ right. I know how this all works, much more than you might peg me for, y’know.” His glare softened. “Trust me, Stan, he doesn’t hate you. He just holds onto things longer than most.”

“How would you even know that, though? You don’t know him.” Stan narrowed his eyes. Perception from an outside glance could only go so far.

Butters sighed, which was rather uncharacteristic of him. “I guess I don’t, do I?” He said, and Stan shrunk a little out of guilt. “I know people pretty well, though, a-an’ it sounds like he’s just as afraid as you are. Heck, I know I’d be, if I mouthed off on Ken or somebody else I lo—“

Ken?

_Ken?_

Everything came to a screeching halt. Stan could practically hear the cinematic record scratch. “Woah woah woah, hold up. Who is ‘Ken,’ and why do you love him?”

 “Oh, that’s what I’ve been meanin’ to tell ya about!” Butters chirped, his eyes glistening with palpable adoration. It would have been sickening on anybody else’s face. “I have a boyfriend now! I think? I think we’re boyfriends? Oh, jeez, maybe I should ask ‘im that before I go spouting off, huh. I’m always doin’ that.” He grew quieter and quieter with each personal interjection. He rubbed his knuckles together and tugged at his fingers.

“Sorry, Stan, I got a little sidetracked there. Where was I? I got a boyfriend, I think! Gosh, Stan, he’s just the most wonderful man in the whole world.” Butters’ face was bursting with happy, healthy energy. Stan was happy for him, but it still didn’t answer his question that he thought he might know the answer to already. If he was right…

“He really is somethin’ else.” Butters giggled a bit and a light blush dusted his face. “He calls me every night to say goodnight, even when he’s busy, an’ he always makes time to talk to me. Well, I’ve never known a man who was so attentive to his lover, and I feel mighty blessed. I get so easily taken advantage of, y’see.” Butters straightened a bit and the dopey grin he’d been sporting fell into a concerned ‘oh.’ “I hadn’t said anything, since you were having your own troubles it felt like I’d be braggin’ by telling you all about it.”

“Butters, what did you say his name was again?” Butters was too soft for him. It couldn’t be.

“His name is Ken, or Kenny I guess, but I like to call him Ken a lot because it’s special that way.”

“Is he tall, skinny as hell with light blue eyes and a shit-eating grin 90% of the time? McCormick?”

“Oh, Stan, do you know ‘im? That’s him, alright! Prettiest blue eyes I ever seen,” he sighed loudly. All Stan could do was groan. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Butters, Kenny is a dick. He lives in the dorms near me, has for several semesters. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy, but he’s just going to use you like all the other people in your past.”

“Stan—“

“No, I’m serious. I don’t want you to get tangled up with somebody I know might break your heart. I don’t know how much I’d trust him with a serious commitment. I’m not sure he would think you’re boyfriends, Butters.” Stan tried to look sympathetic, but it probably came out like a grimace instead. “If I were you, I’d take off, or at least try to let him off gently, or something.”

 

 

“…Oh.”

_No fucking way._


	11. When Your Best Friend Sits You Down, You Listen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan Marsh does a lot of stupid shit. Kenny McCormick is some sort of saint. Stan Marsh appreciates this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is short, as I mentioned last chapter I split one into three parts due to length so this one got snipped pretty small. Please enjoy regardless!

Stan’s heart may as well have stopped. He whirled around in his seat and right behind him stood Kenny fucking McCormick, of all people, sporting a frown that looked genuinely hurt. Stan gaped, tried to figure out a way to backtrack, stuttered nonsense while in his head he screeched _‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck,’_ and all he managed out loud was “Kenny, I-I—“

Kenny put one hand up and closed his eyes while he took a calming breath, like he was pardoning him of some great sin, and in a way Stan felt like he was. “It’s okay dude, I can see how you might get that impression.” He smiled just enough to be sincere and stab through Stan’s chest until his airways felt tight.

“I’m sorry Ken, he didn’t mean it I’m sure! Oh, he’s still hurting about his own troubles, and I don’t think he woulda meant that stuff otherwise. Right Stan?” Stan looked at Butters with his eyes wide as saucers. What the fuck kind of angel did you have to be to defend someone from their own ass? Kenny spoke again before Stan had the chance to reply.

“Nah, it’s okay, Leo. I know about it. We hang out pretty often.” Kenny stepped fluidly around the table and stood beside Butters, and even though he was doing a good job of concealing it, Stan could tell that he’d bothered him. “Stan, meet Lit boy.”

It took Stan a few seconds to come back to the conversation. “Oh shit, _you’re_ Lit boy?”

Butters began to blush. Kenny placed a hand on his shoulder, shaking it affectionately. “Well, yes, we did meet in our English class. I didn’t know you’d talked about me to your friends, Ken.” He grinned up at Kenny, who returned it softly. “I’m gonna grab another bagel, real quick, an’ I’ll be right back, alright?” He planted a quick peck on Kenny’s lips like it was the most natural thing in the world, and it took Stan back a bit. To know that this had been going on all this time just solidified how much he’d really ignored the rest of the world the past few months. Butters was clearly trying to give him a moment alone with Kenny, too, and as soon as he stood and started walking back to the café, Kenny took his place.

Kenny settled into the bench with a soft sigh and rested his head in his hand, purposefully keeping his eyes closed to avoid Stan’s eye contact. Stan felt his heart begin to race with unchecked adrenaline at the same time that it started to crack all over again. Apparently, he couldn’t keep any of his friendships intact anymore. That fact only made him sink lower in his chair and wish he’d sink below ground, too, where maybe he wouldn’t be able to hurt anyone with his stupid words.

“Stan, what the fuck are you doing?” Kenny finally asked, still massaging his temple with his attention on the old wooden table they sat at. Stan’s nerves bristled, but he forced himself to keep his head. Kenny was awfully forgiving for even bothering to try speaking to him about it. He didn’t really deserve the second chance.

“I don’t know.” He answered honestly, feebly, and he felt pathetic for having said it at all. The answer didn’t seem to outright piss Kenny off though, which was cause for a sigh of relief if he survived this conversation.

“Look,” he started, and Stan leaned forward to listen because his voice was incredibly soft and un-Kenny-like, “I know you’re still fucked up about Kyle. I know that’s fucking you up as a whole. But can you please leave me and my relationship out of it?”

“Dude, I didn’t know it was you.”

“When you found out it was me, you still talked a whole lot of shit. Do you really think I’m incapable of commitment?” Kenny asked, and Stan swore it was the most serious he’d ever seen him in his life. He swallowed and blinked rapidly.

“I don’t know,” he said again, and it was true.

“Yeah, you don’t. Because you have this really bad habit of making everything about you, and it means you don’t _actually_ know people. We’ve known each other for over a year, and we hang out all the time, but you don’t know enough about me to know that I take other people’s feelings seriously? Liking casual sex doesn’t mean I’m suddenly incapable of meaningful, long-term relationships, Stan.”

Stan groaned. “Yeah, I know. Look, I’m sorry. I was wrong. I’m sorry my pity party is making such a mess. I promise I’m more pissed at myself than anybody else could be. I’m sorry I was a dick just now.” He crossed his arms on the table and buried his chin behind them, staring into the wood of the table and mentally tracing the grain. He’d really appreciate a divine intervention to drag him to hell where he belonged right about now. “I guess I’m a dick always, huh?”

Kenny sighed again. “You’re not a dick always, you just suck at being a friend sometimes. We’re not all born with the gift of charm,” he pointed to himself with a smirk, “or are too pure to function.” He pointed at the café to indicate whom he was talking about, and Stan managed a small chuckle. “Although, he’s really not all that pure when you get to know him. I really hit the fucking jackpot here—“

“Okay stop talking please!” Stan whined, and Kenny laughed. He was glad to see regular Kenny back, because serious, hurt Kenny was almost as unbearable as angry Kyle. _Kyle._ His stomach lurched. “I know I have to apologize to Kyle, but what do I even say?” He sighed.

Kenny shrugged. “Just say exactly what you just told me. Emphasis on you being a dick, probably.”

“But you’re… _Kenny._ Everything just kinda rolls off you. Kyle is not going to be that chill.”

“How do you know?” Kenny raised his eyebrows. “You hardly know anyone. You just admitted that.”

Stan rolled his eyes. “Ouch. Got me there.” He stretched his back and then his arms up over his head, fighting a yawn all the way while he made his muscles ache. “Okay, so I’ll apologize. Are we cool?”

Kenny’s smile had a tinge of something that Stan couldn’t quite make out—sadness? Pity? —When he replied. “I’m still kinda pissed at you. That was pretty shitty. But it’s fine. I’ll get over it.” He waved a hand to excuse him and Stan watched it flap in the air. He noted that Kenny had rather large hands, all knobby and worn out with long fingers. He’d never paid attention. He supposed now was as good a time as any to start learning about his friends, though, and maybe noticing Kenny’s hands was going to be his first step.

“Okay… I’m still sorry.” Stan exhaled slowly. Kenny nodded.

“I know, lover boy. Speaking of,” he said, and Butters appeared behind Stan with a bagel in hand (Stan had almost expected him to have just come back empty-handed, the bagel having been an obvious cover).

“Did you get to talkin’ at all while I was gone?” Butters smiled, handing the toasted bagel over to Kenny who took a giant bite of it in great haste.

“Yeah, we’re good,” Kenny spoke through a mouthful of bread. He stood and clapped a hand on Stan’s back before he slid it naturally around Butters’ waist, who shivered and giggled a bit at the contact. Stan resisted rolling his eyes and opted for a polite smile instead. Who knows, maybe he was totally wrong about Kenny all this time. He wouldn’t have been surprised if he was. Even his narcissistic ass knew that through all the typical mischievous bullshit Kenny was a genuinely good guy. “We’re gonna head out now, so I’ll catch ya later.”

“See ya,” Stan said on instinct, and he watched Kenny and Butters walk out of the café hand in hand. Kenny’s free calloused hand was holding the bagel he was enthusiastically biting into, and he laughed at some joke that he probably made himself. The way Butters laughed with him suggested that. Stan’s eyes went half-lidded, a dull ache rushing through his chest again. He missed that companionship. He missed...

He cleaned up the remaining garbage on the table and swung his backpack over both shoulders. He had to trek all the way across campus for his next class, and he wanted a head start. Besides, he was pretty sure if he kept sitting there alone his thoughts would burn holes in his head like lit cigarettes.

The cold rushed into him, snuffing out the last bits of warmth the cafeteria had given him as soon as he stepped out of it and onto the beaten path between buildings. He wiggled his fingers in his pockets, clicking his phone on, off, on, off, feeling the resistance weakened from his frequent misuse. Of all nervous habits, he guessed pressing a button wasn’t so bad. He stepped carefully around a patch of ice and lost himself in the quiet shuffling of feet surrounding him.

He walked on autopilot. He tuned everything out as well as he could. The snow had half melted, and half frozen into dangerous patches over the cobblestone. He stared at his feet so he wouldn’t have to acknowledge the people around him.

His attention was caught, however, when he swore he heard his name called. He looked up, looking left and right for the source, and just when he thought he was just going crazy, he locked eyes with the perpetrator.

His mouth was half open, as though he was about to try yelling his name again, and the swarm of students surrounding them almost swallowed it up. Though he stood several yards away Stan felt as though their auras were colliding, a vivid explosion in his imagination that stopped his heart and his breathing and made him want to both dodge through the people around him to get closer and run as far away as possible.

Stan froze, much to the annoyance of people behind him, and he didn’t bother to mumble an apology. Instead, he couldn’t take his eyes off the green masterpieces that were the emeralds in his eyes, so well memorized in his brain that he could see their speckles of brown sunbursts from across a sea of people. That was an exaggeration, of course, but Stan may as well have been able to, for how much those eyes had haunted him for over a month. He hated that they looked as breathtakingly alive as ever.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood there, eyes glued on a face just as frozen as his own, but it was long enough for the traffic to have lifted so that he could easily stride over to him and pour his heart out. Still, he hesitated. Stan thought about the words Butters and Kenny had both given him, about his selfishness and his stubbornness, and he reminded himself the definition of the word ‘sorry’ four times.

“Kyle,” he breathed in response, the name feeling painfully foreign and yet horribly exciting on his lips. He doubted Kyle had heard him. For a while, neither of them moved, and they looked at each other’s faces in an intense game of chicken. Much to Stan’s surprise, Kyle lost, and when he averted his gaze to the ground half covered in snow, Stan took it as his opening to take a step forward, and talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Boy I sure do love cliffhangers


	12. Déjà Vu

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Life has a funny way of coming full-circle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The last bit of the three-part saga! A little reminder that I appreciate all your support and as always, thank you for reading my little mess of a story. ❤️

He had to hand it to the universe; it had a pretty keen sense of humor. The phrase ‘history repeats itself’ apparently trailed all the way down the ladder to not only include world wars and shitty economies, but also the individual fuck-ups. Stan was an individual fuck-up, and history was certainly repeating itself on his walk across campus at the beginning of spring semester. Once again he found his extremities cold as ice, and a boy with bright red hair and brighter green eyes staring at him. This time, though, the eyes on him felt much more personal, and Stan had read them enough times to detect a myriad of emotions behind his expression. He was certainly no stranger, not anymore and no matter how much he might will him to be.

“Hi.” Stan said, trying very hard to maintain eye contact as he shuffled on his feet to keep his body moving. Snow was drifting from large banks into the walkway and making shifting sounds like sand in waves. The sound roared in his ears in the absence of a response. He cleared his throat and green eyes flickered away for just a moment, giving Stan a split second to breathe and panic. He could at least pick up that Kyle wasn’t exactly mad, which was a huge relief. He had half expected Kyle to hate him for all eternity for how he’d acted the last time they’d spoken. There was an entire month devoid of contact between them but it felt like nothing had happened at all, and to an extent that was true. Stan had ghosted through his winter break, torn up to a worrying degree over the bullshit that he’d created of his own selfish accord. He lived in a perfect circle of ‘feel bad, realize it was your own fault, feel more bad, repeat.’

“Well.” Kyle muttered, and even though the tone was less than thrilled Stan was thrilled to hear it. He tugged at his scarf and readjusted it with his frown downcast. Stan traced his features with his eyes and was not surprised to find that nothing his brain could conjure in his memories compared to the real thing. Everything was more beautiful than he remembered. “You may have noticed that we are still paying out the ass for our printing privileges.” God, even his voice was more beautiful than he remembered.

Stan laughed, a little nervous and strained but authentic when he saw the gentle quirk of Kyle’s smile hiding behind jade green cloth. He waited until silence fell between them again and Stan’s chest filled with warm butterflies in record time. He missed this.

“You were right,” Kyle said, “about everything. It all kinda came apart in the end.” He scratched behind his ear and Stan watched a spring-coiled lock of his hair bounce against his palm. “Right after the semester ended people just kind of stopped responding or actively bailed. By the time the meeting was coming up it was just me, and I didn’t stand a chance alone.” He chuckled but it came out flat. “I tried, but the asshole pitted against me shot me down so fast I barely got to say my piece. I guess his professor put him up to it for extra credit. He was a fucking asshole Stan. I swear to god I was going to personally punch him in the throat when he smirked at me while I left. He fucking smirked at me!”

Stan started to laugh, but the glare Kyle sent him shut him up immediately. “Sorry! Sorry,” he coughed slightly, and then, “I missed you.” He smiled at him and Kyle looked away with an embarrassed blush, muttering something incoherent under his breath. Nerves clutched his heart in an icy grip, but for the first time in all this mess, he willed it away. He was being truthful after all. He did miss him. He figured he had a lot of truth telling to do to make up for last semester. “Really though, I am sorry. I know how much you cared about it and I’m sorry things didn’t work out the way you’d hoped.” Kyle sighed and his gaze fluttered back up.

“No, I’m sorry. I got way too carried away, but I got over the anger of it relatively quickly. To be honest with you, I didn’t text you because I was so nervous about having blown up at you that I couldn’t. I figured you hated me.”

Stan gawked at him. “Dude, really? I figured you hated _me._ I’m the one who pulled all that bullshit with you all semester. Honestly I’m surprised you’re even talking to me right now. I straight up lied to you, several times.” He felt the guilt he’d been storing away eat at him from the bottom of his stomach at the confession.

Kyle crossed his arms with another sigh. His shoulders dropped with the motion. “I know, and maybe I _should_ hate you.”

Stan snorted. “Oh gee, thanks.”

“Shut up.” Kyle smiled mischievously for a moment. It was only a moment though, and his face returned to the sullen defeat that was breaking Stan’s heart. “Anyway, I know I should be mad, but I’m just… not. Yeah, you lied, and yeah, it was a shitty thing to do, but that doesn’t negate all the _good_ things we did together, you know?” His face lit up with a gentle, crooked smile that made Stan’s chest swell with hope. For the first time, he toyed with the notion that maybe things could get better. Maybe their friendship hadn’t been a flash flood that receded as quickly as it had rushed in. Maybe there was still a chance.

“Yeah,” Stan breathed, “yeah, I know.” He felt his face begin to heat up all the way to his ears. “I really didn’t want you to hate me. I didn’t want to lose what friendship we had.”

“Have.” Kyle corrected him, his smile growing wider. “Friendship we have. It didn’t disappear because I lost my temper. That would be ridiculous.”

“Yeah, we’d never be friends.” Risky levels of sass, watch it…

“Shut up!” Kyle repeated, laughing and smacking at his arm. Stan snickered behind a cupped hand. Worth the risk.

“Well, thanks, I guess. For forgiving me and shit. I’m still sorry. You gotta tell me what I can do to make it up to you, because I have no idea.” Stan stuck his hands in his pockets and stared down at his sneakers.

Kyle hummed in thought, biting the inside of his cheek as Stan watched him nervously. “Well, we don’t have an excuse to meet up on Wednesdays anymore, do we?” Stan shook his head. He hadn’t really thought of that. “Make it up to me by spending Wednesdays with me anyway.” Kyle’s grin grew bold, and Stan hoped the gust of wind assaulting them would explain away the blush that was quickly taking over his entire face.

“Uh, yeah, okay.” Fucking hell, back to the ‘uh’s? Really? Stan got halfway through berating himself for devolving several conversation levels before Kyle punched him playfully in the arm.

“Dork. It’s not any different than before. There had to be a good reason for you to lie just to spend time with me.” His smile turned sly and Stan felt goose bumps fly up his arms. Oh Jesus Christ. He wasn’t gonna make it. “What are you doing now? Do you wanna make this a full reenactment and get coffee again?” He pivoted on his left so they were standing side by side.

“My next class isn’t for a while, I just left early. I mean. I’m saying I guess? Yes.” Stan hoped it sounded more chill than he actually felt, which was not chill at all. Inside he was freaking the fuck out. Kyle didn’t hate him? And still wanted to hang out with him? _And_ wanted to go out again? It was too much. He was beside himself with glee at the same time that he was beside himself with terror. “Is this like a reboot?”

Kyle shrugged, nudging his arm to get them walking in the direction of the dining hall. “Kind of. We’re just already halfway there.” Stan thought of questioning what he meant, but didn’t want to press his luck. They walked in comfortable silence while the wind kicked up more snow and covered old tracks.

“Oh, by the way, I got an A- on the final.” He thought he’d never get the chance to tell him. Kyle’s eyes widened and he beamed at him, prompting his own proud grin.

“What? No way dude, congrats! That’s awesome! See, I told you my study habits were top-notch. No such thing as a hopeless case.”

“You’re my friendly neighborhood studying hero.”

“Fuck yeah I am.” Stan felt the laughter bubble in his chest before it escaped, and he let it consume him as he held the door to the dining hall open. A rush of hot air from inside greeted them both. Kyle stepped in and brushed his shoulder, a few inches past his personal bubble shield. He gave him a pointed grin and Stan shivered despite the warmth from inside. “I missed you too,” he murmured, and Stan thanked the universe for its impeccable sense of humor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I missed these two so much, I couldn't keep them apart for long!


	13. How To Help Someone With Anxiety and 10+ Other Articles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan is starting to have an extremely difficult time not being insufferably homosexual. Also, research is dangerous. Would not recommend if you want to keep your friendship with your gorgeous redhead of choice a friendship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been sooooooooo long and I am so sorry, my friends. My attention gotten eaten up by a) Halfway, my new Creek multichapter fic that I am very excited about (shameless plugging) and b) the South Park Drabble Bomb, which I am running, and you should check out (more shameless plugging)!! The tumblr is @spdrabblebomb. I also want to thank all of you for over 2,000 views and over 200 kudos! I am honored to have you all as fans. :) Okay, all that aside, I hope you enjoy! This story is just about to wrap up, and I'm excited to bring a close to these two nerds.

Kenny and Butters were pretty cute together. It was objective fact and Stan felt some genuine happiness for them. The only problem was that it seemed as though now that he knew about Butters, he saw him _everywhere._ He was walking the halls of the dorms like he lived there half the time, sometimes just hanging in one of the lounges without Kenny, like he paid the rent or some shit. He watched him and Kenny stumble into Kenny’s room giggling more than once.

It annoyed the ever-living _fuck_ out of Stan.

He was happy for them—really!—But god, did it ever grate on his nerves to watch them do dating shit together, like sit together at the dining hall. They once did that thing new couples do where they sat next to each other instead of across, as though not having constant physical contact would make their feelings disappear. Granted, he’d only seen it that one time, but it felt burned into his memory like they did it every day, and they could for all he knew. Okay, maybe he didn’t see Butters everywhere. Maybe he was exaggerating a little.

It could very well have been the fact that it was specifically Kenny that fucked him up too, considering all he’d ever known him to do was hit and quit. Seeing Kenny act so domestic was not something Stan ever thought he’d see in all his time knowing him. They were just so goddamn _happy._ Ugh.

Okay, confession. Maybe there were two problems. No, there were definitely two problems. His second problem was that he was officially and ashamedly jealous.

True to Kyle’s word, their relationship picked up right where it left off extremely quickly. Stan actually believed him when he said he wasn’t mad and was instead just afraid to reach out, and he assumed it had something to do with the anxiety they’d discussed once before since its reveal. _“Some people have it way worse,”_ he’d said one day while they ate a quick snack between classes, _“but every once in a while all the skills I’ve learned fail me.”_ Stan initially found it hard to believe Kyle could ever lose control, with how carefully and boldly he faced everything. After all the research he’d done, though (thanks _How To Help Someone With Anxiety_ and the 10+ other articles he’d extensively read), he did his best to understand.

“So we were discussing the prompt, and I wanted to put in my thoughts as well, but that asshole of a professor skipped over me, and I know it was intentional. It had to be! He knew I had my hand raised to contribute and he turned the attention over to fucking Maggie, of all fucking people, that bitch. Ugh. She has no idea what she’s talking about, ever. Do you know how frustrating it is to listen to her valley girl accent? On top of being skipped in favor of that trash? For fuck’s sake, she wasn’t even right about half of it!”

“Maybe he just wanted a different perspective.” While Kyle ranted, sometimes Stan liked to think of him like a cat, hissing and growling and slashing his claws without actually doing damage.

Kyle scoffed. “No way, he’s just a dick. He doesn’t want me spouting off, or some other ridiculous excuse. It’s a _philosophy_ class, we’re _supposed_ to discuss and explore. Jackass.”

“I dunno dude, doesn’t that just prove my theory?” Stan kicked at a small pile of slushy snow, and was extremely disappointed when it didn’t dissolve on contact but instead just sort of plastered itself to the front of his shoe. He grunted and tapped his shoe on the pavement to clean it off. He watched Kyle roll his eyes and roll his fingertips on his upper arm where it rested with his arms crossed. The signature mild irritation quirk, if Stan remembered correctly.

“Whatever Stan, you don’t have to listen to her stupid nasally voice. You don’t get it.”

“Craig’s voice is pretty nasally, and annoying.”

Kyle groaned and the tapping of his fingers transformed into a tight grip on his bicep. Abort, abort! He’d pushed him into a legitimately irritated quirk. “Can you stop playing devil’s advocate for like, five seconds? I’m trying to whine.”

It was Stan’s turn to roll his eyes, but he did so with a smile on his face. “Whine away.”

Times like this one reminded Stan of the old Wednesday study sessions from last semester, when he’d listen to Kyle bitch and moan for ridiculous expanses of time without any care to stop him. He didn’t consider himself an especially quiet guy, but he wondered if Kyle might think he was by how much he preferred to simply shut up and listen.

Stan caught a girl kiss a boy on the cheek across the walkway from the corner of his eye and he was reminded of the countless times he’d seen Kenny and Butters do the same. He sighed, and wondered how Kyle’s smooth freckled skin would feel on his lips. He wondered if he’d be able to feel the slightest hints of stubble, because even though Kyle kept facial hair meticulously at bay, such close quarters might reveal tiny coarse hairs he couldn’t completely erase. Stan scratched absently at his own prickly hair he’d been neglecting to shave out of sheer laziness. He wondered if Kyle liked that, or if he preferred a smooth face. Fuck, he’d full on grow a beard if Kyle liked that more. He had no idea if he could, but he’d sure as shit try.

“Stan?” Kyle said, and he gripped Stan’s shoulder and shook it gently. “You still here? I was whining. You said you’d listen if I whined.” He said so in a whiny voice to make a point. Stan snorted.

“Okay, you caught me. I was just thinking about Kenny.” He figured it was as close to the truth as he was willing to admit.

“That’s your friend at the dorms, right? I heard he got a boyfriend. Good for him.” Kyle said, but his smile didn’t look quite so genuine. It was mild in a way that Kyle was not.

“Yeah, and it’s great. I’m happy for them! It’s just,” Stan groaned, “he’s _always_ around now, the boyfriend, and he’s fine but I wish he’d like, I dunno, cool it a bit.”

“He’s probably just excited. I get that.” Kyle shrugged. “I was excited when I got my first, um,” he cut himself off, which was a tremendously un-Kyle thing to do, and Stan looked over at him to see him biting at his finger. Stan’s research and personal observations had taught him that it was a nervous response.

“Are you okay?” He asked, and he reached over to touch his hand gently as a reminder. The skin was soft and pale, and Stan was positively assaulted with the urge to keep touching it, fuck the consequences. He took the opportunity to slide his fingers over the back of his knuckles in a move that was not particularly smooth or romantic, but it was more than what was necessary and God did he ever hope he wouldn’t freak out. Kyle’s head jerked up as he jumped and he looked at him with what looked suspiciously like fear in his widened eyes. Stan realized his mistake, _‘stupid, stupid, fuck,’_ and he tugged at his hand to pull away, but to his surprise, Kyle gripped it before he could reclaim it.

They stood still, both forgetting how to walk, and Stan looked down at the way slender and milky-white fingers wrapped themselves around the back of his hand. They were clasped in a way reminiscent of an arm wrestling match, and it would be uncomfortable soon if they didn’t unlock. Again, not the most romantic handhold he’d ever witnessed, but it was _something,_ and the realization that it was _something_ nearly knocked him off his feet. The warmth was sorely missed when Kyle realized what he’d done.

“Uh,” Kyle laughed slightly, doing his best to wave it off, “just a reflex. You startled me. Thanks for catching that, by the way.”

Stan couldn’t help but feel disappointment deep in his ribcage that left it feeling tingly and overall bad, but he laughed back anyway. “Yeah, no problem. It’s cool if I do that?”

“No one has ever tried to before, but I don’t think it’s a bad thing. I’ll tell you if that changes.” Kyle smiled, the specific twitch of his lips that still stole Stan’s breath away, and he smiled back. Thanks _How To Help Someone With Anxiety._


	14. Today on Professional Matchmaking: Kenny vs Therapist (Unnamed)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Stan thinks he has a game plan. Kyle's way ahead of him, and also way too good at fucking up Stan's game plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick shoutout to everyone reading and kudos-ing and commenting so far! The story is about to wrap up so I hope you're ready to put this baby to rest as much as I am.

_we gotta talk bro_

 It was a simple text message, and while it at the very least didn’t contain the dreaded period at the end of a sentence that signaled certain death when texting Kenny, it still sent shivers down Stan’s spine. People didn’t just say, “We gotta talk bro,” especially not Kenny. 

_nothings wrong btw_

_were just overdue for a brodown u feel :P :P :P_

Well, at least he knew how nerve-wracking he’d originally been.

_when?_

As always, Kenny was lightning-quick to reply.

_idk leo says soon tho_

_i think im drivin him nuts lol_

_i never shut up ab u babe i miss u (ToT)_

_tot??_

_its a crying face im crying asshat : < _

_where tf do you find these faces?_

Stan tilted his head to the side to read the sideways frown.

_a bitch never tells_

_theres a website w a bunch of them tho_

_aint they cute uwu_

_no_

_oh whatever stanley_

_see me at the lounge before smash tomarrow (*3*) xox_

How a college student still managed to misspell a word like tomorrow, he would never know. Stan sighed at the open conversation and decided not to reply. Kenny knew he’d show up regardless.

His cryptic implications kept Stan’s stomach churning the rest of the day, and he struggled to participate in his usual pastime of absolutely fucking nothing. He was tempted to go knock on Kenny’s door and request that they get it over with, right here, right now, but he ran the risk of running into Kenny and Butters mid-coitus, which was not his idea of a good time. On top of being wildly uncomfortable it just made him feel bad about his own lack of action, to be honest. Also, he had a bad feeling at least one of them would be into getting caught, like, in the kinky way.  

Once Sunday rolled over, he decided an hour ahead of schedule would be fine, though mostly because he didn’t think he could sit around all morning waiting. He fought the sleep in his eyes by rubbing the hell out of them, which probably made them red, but he didn’t give much of a shit. Smash Sunday was the lowest commitment kind of gathering. It was a treat that he was wearing proper pants. He turned the corner in half a daze to peer into the lounge, and Kenny was already waiting up for him at a table with an empty chair opposite him. His face lit up as soon as he caught Stan’s eye.

“Ayy, Stan my man! Into my office dude; I made _hors d’oeuvres,”_ Kenny over-pronounced, with a great sweeping motion of his hand across the coffee table.

“Kenny, these are pizza rolls.” He sat down and took one anyway.

“I don’t know what ever you’re implying. Are they not a small dish served before dinner?” He was faking a posh accent really terribly, and Stan snorted at him.

“Thanks.” He prodded at the center of it, trying to decide if the inside was going to be either molten hot or acceptable for consumption, and he took the chance by popping the whole thing in his mouth. It only sort of burned the roof of his mouth in that familiar pizza roll way.

“Alright, I’ll cut to the chase.” Kenny tented his hands over his mouth as though prepping for an important business meeting, and despite how ridiculous it looked, Stan swallowed uncomfortably past a dry throat. “We gotta talk about boy wonder. The golden boy. Or ginger boy, I guess? That makes him sound like a gingerbread man though, so that’s not right. Anyway, your redheaded hot piece of ass.”

“Kenny!” Stan cried, and he ran a hand through his messy hair to soothe the oncoming and inescapable McCormick Migraine. “Please just call him Kyle.”

“Alright then, Kyle. We need to talk about him.” Kenny plucked a pizza roll from the plate between them and used it as a talking tool, pointing it at Stan before eating it in one bite. “He’s gay. You’re gay. Why aren’t you kissing yet?”

Stan groaned. He should have seen this coming, but he never claimed to be an especially smart guy who would notice social cues. “I don’t even know for sure if he’s gay.”

Kenny stared at him pointedly, unmoving and stern, and Stan finally coughed awkwardly to help him avert his gaze. “Okay, he’s probably gay. I think, but still. I don’t know Kenny. How did you get Butters to kiss you?”

“Ah, an excellent question!” Kenny spoke over a full mouth and he half-heartedly covered his lips with his hand until he finished chewing. “I told him he had a cute face and he suggested we go back to his place. It was very to the point, I’d say, but we actually _didn’t_ fuck. We just talked in his room for a few hours. Isn’t that wild?” A dreamy look dominated his face. Stan felt a little sick for more than one reason.

“That’s nice Kenny,” he said quickly, “but ultimately unhelpful.”

“Hey, you asked.” Kenny raised his hands in mock defeat, and Stan sighed.

“I don’t know. I don’t know how this all works. I’ve always been awful at it. Kyle probably doesn’t even know how I feel.”

“Well yeah, duh,” Kenny said. “You haven’t told him how you feel. He can’t guess. I have a feeling he isn’t great at guessing games.”

“I know, I just- I really... What if he doesn’t like me? Uh, like that.” The gravity of his fears felt more oppressive than ever, and they weighted him to his chair.

Kenny brought his thumb to his chin, leaning forward to rest his elbow on his knee. “Then I guess you end up pining forever until you get over it. Honestly though? I think he likes you too.”

Stan perked up, the words music to his ears. “Really?” he asked.

“Why else would he keep spending all this time with you?” Kenny asked, and it was a good point. “We already had this conversation once before dude, at the way, way beginning. You remember that?” Stan nodded. “I told you to go for it. I’m telling you to go for it again, but more aggressively this time. The dude is right there for you to sweep off his feet. Quit messing around and commit to it.” All these serious conversations with Kenny were starting to freak him out.

“Easy for you to say. I know I _want_ to kiss him,” and just saying the words made him start to break into a cold sweat, “but when he’s around, I just, I dunno. My brain cuts out. I forget how to do everything.”

“Stanley, I am well aware that you have all the romantic grace of a dying goldfish.” Stan instantly resented him for that comment and tried to convey it by pouting at him. It kind of worked, because Kenny leaned back with a heavy sigh. “Dude, I don’t know anything about him. Everybody’s different.”

“I know, but..!” Stan groaned and flopped back in his chair. “I don’t know.” He sighed and stared wistfully at the ugly carpet beneath his feet. It was quiet between them for a few moments.

“So are we discussing our dysfunctional love lives all day or playing video games to forget?” a bored voice droned out of nowhere, and Stan jumped straight up in his seat with fright on the first nasally beat.

“We’ll be playing, asshole. Nobody’s fucking here yet. Hold your horses.” Kenny rolled his eyes, and Stan stared past him at the chair that he could just barely make out to seat someone with skin-tight black jeans and converse. Craig, obviously. He felt embarrassed at how much he’d just poured out to Kenny that he probably heard clear as a bell, but also it was Craig, and he was definitely just an asshole and not a threat whatsoever.

“Why’s he such a dick?” Stan whispered, and Kenny shrugged.

“No one knows. I think it’s part of his charm though.”

Stan looked over his shoulder at his artfully damaged chucks that were crossed in the middle of the walkway, sure to trip anyone who tried walking past him, and wrinkled his nose in distaste. “If you consider being an asshole charm, then yeah.”

“I mean, I’m charming as hell, right?” Kenny flashed him a winning smile and he rolled his eyes. “Look, he’s gonna be coming over today right?” Stan nodded; Kyle had made a point of coming to Smash Sundays more this year. He was the reigning champ in the classic rounds, but Craig and his friend Clyde still had him beat in the doubles. “Just talk with him alone in the corner like always and try to slip an invite to coffee or something in there. Real casual, but try to make your intentions at least halfway clear. Subtleties don’t work with him, from what I’ve heard.”

Stan nodded more slowly this time, letting the advice sink in. It was a solid strategy, that he didn’t doubt, but it was his execution that he was most concerned about. Hearing Kenny say he thought Kyle liked him too worked wonders to boost his confidence though, and asking him out seemed a little less intimidating by the minute. “Thanks, Kenny,” he said, genuinely grateful, and Kenny’s lopsided smile made him grin back.

“Don’t mention it. Eat more of these. They’re for best friends only.” Kenny gestured at the plate of pizza rolls with a bad wink, and Stan laughed quietly. He was glad to consider Kenny a best friend, too.

The usual crowd began to pile up in the room in groups of twos and threes, and soon almost everyone was raring to go. Kyle walked in alone at the last minute, looking in a hurry and slightly disheveled. “Sorry,” he told Stan, whose attention could be held only by the angelic freckles on his cheeks, “had an appointment.”

“Everything okay?” he asked, and Kyle nodded while he shrugged off his coat and his hat. It made Stan proud that he was starting to feel more comfortable with it off, even in front of large crowds. Now he pulled it off without a second thought, and when Stan plucked it off for him, he only complained because he had the unfair advantage of being taller and able to hold it outside his reach. His cherubic curls were free to coil and spring from his scalp in all their crazy directions, and Stan’s only regret was that he still hadn’t touched them. The couple of times he grazed them while teasing Kyle about his hat were tormenting enough, the bushiness not unlike wool brushing past his fingers, stunning him. Oh, what he wouldn’t give to just grab a handful of it and pull him forward-

“Stan?” Kyle said, fingers poised to flick his face, and Stan realized he’d been zoning. “You okay?” he asked, and Stan gave a nervous smile, suddenly remembering his conversation with Kenny.

“Yeah man, I’m good. You ready for today’s lineup?” They both looked at Kenny’s board with a schedule of one-on-one battles surrounded by old dick drawings. Kyle didn’t show up until the fifth round, and Stan the eighth. Plenty of time to ask him out. Now he just needed the courage.

“Stoley’s an easy win. No problem.” Kyle raised his chin and waved his fight away with a scoff. “I wanted to talk to you first though. Do you mind? Somewhere a little quieter?” he asked, and a drop of anxiety poisoned Stan’s lungs.

“You sure everything’s okay?” Stan asked, worry tensing his brow, and Kyle playfully punched his arm with a smirk.

“Everything’s okay, I promise. Just a regular visit. I talked about something with my therapist though, and I…” he trailed off, his expression troubled, and Stan felt even more nervous than before. “I just wanna ask you something.”

“Okay,” Stan said, but his lips felt numb and his brain number as they found seats by the corner of the room where they could still hear everyone shouting at the screen and each other clearly.

“Alright, okay.” Kyle took a deliberate deep breath, and Stan wanted to steady him with a comforting hand on his shoulder but worried it’d be too much, so he kept still. “We were talking about how my friendships and relationships with people have been, and you kinda came up.” Kyle winced but Stan said nothing, leaning forward to urge him to continue. “It isn’t bad, I mean, it _could_ be bad, depending on how you feel about it, but it isn’t inherently a _bad_ thing. Anyway, I’m rambling. I do that too much. Why do you let me do that?”

“I like listening to you talk,” Stan said, before his filter could catch up, and his face heated up in embarrassment. Kyle was no better, his skin reddening quickly and his eyes bulging. He licked his lips, eye contact darting away with a beautiful little laugh escaping him like a melody he wanted to pluck back on guitar strings.

“See, okay, this is why. This is what we talked about.”

Stan tilted his head slightly. “What is?” Now he was just getting confused.

“You say things like that, and I just- I don’t know, ugh!” Kyle knotted a hand in his hair, his face clearly spelling nervousness. “It’s so frustrating. I’m around you and I just, lose every functionality lately. My brain short-circuits. I’m sorry; I’m trying. Hold on.”

Stan raised his eyebrows as Kyle took another calming breath. He took another, then started a third before he looked Stan straight in the eye with palpable frustration in his electrified seas of green. “Why are you so patient? That is not helpful! Ask me please!”

“Ask you what?” Stan said, his voice rising alongside Kyle’s, taken aback and hopelessly lost.

“Just ask me _what!”_

“Okay, _what?!”_ Stan cried, matching Kyle’s desperate tone.

“I need to know if you’ll go to coffee with me Wednesday morning, before class!” Kyle buried his face in his hands, having spit out the sentence lightning-fast and moaned his frustration into his palms. It took Stan a moment to catch up.

“So you just wanna grab something before class? I mean, we do that all the time, so like, yeah. Sure?” He didn’t really understand the hang-up.

Kyle gaped at him. “Wait, seriously?” he asked, surprise all over his communicative face.

“Yeah dude, I think that’s fine. Was that seriously it?” Stan laughed awkwardly, scratching at his neck and reaching for his phone to wear out its buttons again. “Because that is so like, not even a big deal.”

“Ugh, I know, and that’s what she told me, but I guess I’ve just been afraid of what you might say. I didn’t know if you’d want to and I didn’t want to offend you by asking, in case, you know. You weren’t. Yeah.”

Stan didn’t understand what would be so offensive about another coffee run before class. He was about to ask, but then the words Kyle had just said, in the way that he’d just said them, began to set in. _‘Try to slip an invite to coffee or something in there,’_ Kenny’s voice echoed in his head. _‘Afraid of what you might say,’_ and _‘I didn’t want to offend you,’_ and _‘in case, you know, you weren’t, yeah,’_ coming together in an explosion worthy of an atomic bomb between his ears.

It couldn’t have been. Could it?

Before he could ask for clarification, a chorus of boys called out Kyle’s name, looking for him to battle it out with Kevin in his match. Stan was just barely present enough to be surprised it was already his turn.

“Quit yackin’ and come kick Stoley’s ass!” Kenny yelled, and the boys around him laughed and cheered when Kyle waved to acknowledge them.

“So, um, I’ll text you?” Kyle said, biting at his bottom lip with a small smile gracing his presence, a thing of divinity that left Stan’s ears still ringing in the aftermath of his nuclear meltdown.

“Yeah,” he managed.

When Kyle hopped back to the group with an extra swing in his step, Stan watched him go, feeling both blessed and cursed for the affliction that was Kyle Broflovski. With an inhale that felt like it filled his lungs with water instead of air, he whispered, enthusiastically, “oh _shit.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only one more chapter to go my friends!


	15. Haha Then What ;)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kenny and Butters think Stan should have learned by now that simply asking is much easier than constant second-guessing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I decided to split this in half, because the coffee shop scene started getting long. As a token of my gratitude for your patience and support, I'll post the final chapter sooner rather than later, probably by the end of this week. Enjoy!

“Okay, run this by us again, Stan,” Butters said, his eyebrows knit in total concentration mode where he sat across from him at the lounge table.

“Okay, he asked to go get coffee Wednesday morning, which I thought was like, no big deal, because we do that all the time anyway. But I don’t think he meant like a normal morning, because he said he didn’t want to _offend_ me by asking. I think that’s code for him low-key assuming I’m into dick. Did we come to that conclusion?”

“Yes sir, I think that’s right. Then what?”

“Well it wasn’t then, but before that he said something like, his brain short-circuits around me.” Butters and Kenny made a cooing sound simultaneously, embarrassing the shit out of him, and he shushed them harshly. “Shut up guys, I’m still in crisis!”

“Aww, Stan, I just think it’s cute, ’s all.”

“Yeah, man. You told me he did the same thing to you literally like, an hour before he said it. Shit’s adorable as fuck.” Kenny nodded sagely, and Stan sunk a little lower in his chair, as though it could hide his humiliation.

“What if this is just a regular morning, though? What if I’m gearing myself for nothing? Is this a date or not?!”

“Have you asked him?” Butters asked, expression thoughtful. “Sounds like you text ‘im all day long, most days. Can’t you just ask ‘im?”

“Butters, I can’t just _ask_ him,” Stan moaned.

“Well, sure ya can!” he countered, chipper as always, and without warning, Kenny reached across the table and snatched Stan’s phone for himself.

“Hey, what the fuck-“

“Let’s see,” Kenny said, pressing it on and poking through his apps, and Stan felt his soul shrivel up and scream for death inside of him. “What do you think, Leo? I’m thinking ‘so what did you mean about Wednesday?’ will do it. Oh, Stanley, you haven’t texted him in over 24 hours? For shame, boy.”

“Give it back!” Stan cried, swiping for his phone pathetically and missing each time. “Please just let me do it! I’ll do it I swear,” he begged, and Kenny raised his eyebrows at him before relenting and pushing the phone back across the table. Stan reached over and punched him in the shoulder without nearly as much restraint as usual. The cry of pain Kenny let out made it worth it. “Don’t take someone’s phone, you asshole. That’s against literally every code.”

“Nobody actually follows codes,” Kenny muttered, rubbing his sore arm, and Stan glared at him before looking back down at his phone. Kenny had started typing the message already, and the window read _‘so what did u m.’_ He was supremely glad Kenny hadn’t had the chance to finish the message, because he rarely used _‘u’_ in place of _‘you,’_ and getting busted for asking his friends for direct help was not a great maybe-date conversation starter.

“Well?” Butters said, excitement oozing from every inch of him in an explosion Stan could practically see.

 “Gimme a sec.”

 

_hey so_

_what did you mean ab Wednesday?_

Hitting send on both of them felt like two death wishes on his heart. He set his phone down on the table and Kenny and Butters both leaned in to look at it. “Now we wait,” Stan said, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair.

“Not for long, it looks like,” Kenny said, pointing at the screen, “I see dots, buddy. That’s a pretty quick response.”

Stan flushed. “He usually answers me pretty quickly.” Butters and Kenny did the goddamn cooing thing again. “Fuck off, God!”

They all stared at the phone, Stan a little less obviously than the other two with their faces practically touching the tabletop, but his curiosity probably two times greater. The dots kept going, and going, and going. A few times they disappeared, and each time they started back up Butters let out a cute little gasp. As much as the helicoptering got annoying, Stan appreciated having such supportive friends in his arsenal.

Grey finally popped up on the screen, and Stan grabbed his phone in record timing. “Lemme see dude!” Kenny said, but Stan held the phone right up to his face to quickly read all that Kyle had typed, which was actually quite a bit.

 

_Well, I’m not usually one to go into a whole discussion over text, and I’d rather talk about it in person, but I guess it just feels right, you know? I feel like I should have asked months ago and I’ve just been too worried about what you might think or if you’d just flat-out reject me. I don’t know what I’m saying, please ignore me._

 

A twinge of pity sunk in his stomach knowing Kyle was feeling so conflicted, but it also felt like his stomach exploded on the impact when the word _‘reject’_ burned itself into his retinas. That was a _date_ word. He groaned from the stomachache and passed it over to Butters, and Kenny read over his shoulder eagerly. “This definitely sounds like a date, bud,” Kenny said. “Baby’s first date! Oh Leo, we gotta take a picture for the scrapbook.” Butters giggled and Stan scowled.

“Fuck off Kenny, I’ve dated people before and you know it.”

“Yeah but none of them have been Kyle! Dude, I haven’t seen you this fucked up about someone ever. This is the real deal. You gotta know that.” Stan didn’t have a response, because he did know that. It _was_ different, and that was what terrified him.

“Oh, he said somethin’ else!” Butters said, and before Kenny could steal it to read it first he quite courteously handed it over to Stan. He felt his heart leap to his throat.

 

_I should just shut up about it or I’ll end up making a fool of myself. I’ve already done that, actually, so scratch that. Ugh, I wish I could come over to delete these from your phone so you’d never see them. Why haven’t they made that a feature? I don’t give a single fuck about these weird advanced text messaging options. Let me erase my mistakes from existence, please._

 

Stan couldn’t help but laugh under his breath, taking a moment to stare at Kyle’s words like they’d pop from the screen and hug him themselves, before he lowered his phone to two sets of sentimental, glittering eyes.

“Oh Stan, you have it so bad,” Butters laughed, and Kenny raised a hand for them to high-five. Well, he was glad someone was enjoying themselves.

“I know,” Stan said, and admitting it felt different this time, a little more final and real. The dots showed back up again. “I better respond guys, he’s gonna freak himself out if he keeps texting me essays.”

“So do you need more clarification or are you good?” Kenny asked.

“It sure sounds like a date to me,” Butters said with a nod, and Kenny copied him.

“Just text him back like you normally would. Just try to make sure he gets that you’re not saying no and everything’s fine. However you usually chill him out, you know,” Kenny suggested, and Stan nodded. He opened up his texting window and as soon as he typed the first word, Kyle’s dots disappeared.

 

_hey dude youre fine lol_

 

He was definitely not laughing, but who actually used lol when they laughed anyway? Stan capitalized it whenever he actually laughed, for emphasis that it was acting as a legitimate descriptor and not as punctuation.

 

_i just wanted to check in since you got cut off at smash yk_

_wasnt sure what you meant by coffee_

Kyle was quick to start typing again, and his response gave him the uncontrollable urge to place a hand over his heart.

 

_If you show up to Henri’s Wednesday morning at nine, I can show you. ;)_

 

He wordlessly passed his phone over to his friends, feeling a million miles away, and when they read through the past few messages down to the most recent one, they hopped from their places to holler like excitable idiots.

“Stan’s got a date, Stan’s got a date! Come on Stanny boy, c’mon!” Kenny leapt around to Stan’s side of the table and yanked him to his feet, dragging him to the middle of the lounge where he and Butters started dancing to music Stan couldn’t hear. Kenny dipped him low to the ground, so low that they nearly tumbled over, all giggles and snorts. In that moment, Stan wished them the world, and made a mental note to thank them for the little bit of sunshine they spread to everyone they touched.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all ready for the ultimate cliche finale? ;)


	16. By Virtue of Passion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Coffee dates are the ultimate of fluffy endings. You're welcome.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone, and welcome to the final chapter of my first baby in this fandom, By Virtue of Passion. This fanfiction means a lot to me in a lot of ways, but I think the most notable thing is how very far I've come since writing the first chapter. This fic was supposed to be a one-shot; sixteen chapters later and I'm still laughing. It's been my fallback, when other projects were too much, to just sit and write this pile of fluff. Its reliability as my happy place has been integral to my development as a writer. 
> 
> To everyone who has stuck by me from the beginning, I thank you from the bottom of my heart. If you're just reading now, then I hope you've enjoyed this mishmash of purity that has gotten me through so many difficult creative moments. Your response as a community has been phenomenal, throughout, and I can never thank you all enough. 
> 
> I should probably get to letting you all actually read the ending, so I'll stop rambling here. Thank you so very much for the memories, and I hope to see you back for the next adventure I cook up!

Even beyond not being a regular Wednesday morning coffee run, Kyle had directed Stan to a legitimate coffee shop, which just meant not the one built into the dining hall. Henri’s was two blocks away from the main campus, and even though the ambiance was a bit dark, in one word, the coffee was always good and the music always new. Stan liked that it felt like a real college student’s haven, and it routinely made him feel a little bit cooler than he actually was to walk through its doors.

At first glance Stan didn’t see him, and he almost started to panic before a waving hand caught his eye and directed him to a head full of wild hair tucked mostly away beneath a bright green hat. He was a little disappointed to see him wearing it again, but he figured it was a security blanket this time, just like his own old red poof-ball hat that he’d definitely donned before heading out this morning. He gave a small wave back to show that he’d seen him, and went to the front counter to order something simple. Kyle’d already gotten his own drink, which he’d seen in his other hand. He would have offered to pay for his too, otherwise, because that sounded like the appropriate thing to do on a date.

_ Date. _

As soon as his cup was ready Stan whisked it away from the counter and made his way through the cramped coffee house to the short table Kyle had already claimed, surrounded by pillows and bean bags. It was definitely the most coveted of seating choices, and Stan approved wholeheartedly. He sat down in the bean bag chair across from Kyle, and braced himself for the flash of brilliance that would undoubtedly hit him the moment they made direct eye contact.

“Uh, hey,” Stan said, looking right into his eyes at his first glance up and instantly losing track of all thought processes. He could stare at them all day, and was horribly disappointed when they darted away, Kyle’s attention averted with a light dusting of added color on his face.

“Hi,” Kyle said, and the nervousness in his voice was shocking. He was so used to him talking his ear off that the silence after their greetings felt awkward enough to make Stan look away too. Instead he focused on Kyle’s hands, the way they curled around his coffee cup and his fingers overlapped each other to meet in the middle.

“So, uh, come here often?” Stan said, and Kyle covered his mouth but couldn’t help but smile at him, his eyes squinting as he held in laughter.

“Stop,” he insisted, a few chuckles escaping him, before he sobered up with a warm gaze directed at the table. He closed his eyes and let out a sigh. The tension rolled from his shoulders, and his gaze fluttered open to settle on Stan’s again. He looked more like himself, albeit a little embarrassed. “I’m sorry. I haven’t done this very much.”

“And by this you mean..?” Stan coaxed.

“Going out,” Kyle said wearily, “and by very much I mean basically not at all.” He put his elbow on the table to rest his cheek in his palm. “Not to be a downer, but people don’t like me much, dude.” 

“I like you,” he countered, and Kyle stuttered on a meaningless syllable before he resigned to holding his coffee by both hands again, looking intently into his drink.

“How long have you liked me, exactly?” Kyle asked, his face painfully apprehensive. “Be honest.”

“Honestly? Since you shoved a poster in my face.”

Kyle laughed and Stan felt heaven kiss his eardrums. “No way. I was so annoying!”

“Yeah,” Stan admitted, “but you were also very cute.”

Kyle started, but didn’t directly reply. Instead, he swirled his coffee with a cheap stir stick snagged from the front counter. “It was only last semester, but it feels like forever ago.” He stopped stirring. “That’s why you stayed with me for so long, isn’t it? Because you thought I was cute?” Kyle’s eyes were bugged out, screaming revelation, and Stan couldn’t help but laugh.

“Yeah, kinda. Creepy, right?”

“Maybe a little,” Kyle mused, “but also endearing.”

“Yeah?”

“I think so, yeah.”

They let a few moments pass comfortably while the mood set in and, thank god, they started to mesh like they usually did together. Stan liked the music especially today; it was something generically indie, and the common theme was acoustic. It made for a pleasant backdrop and helped soothe his nerves.

“So you’ve liked me this  _ whole _ time?” Kyle asked, his face incredulous, and Stan nodded slowly, attempting to reassure him. “I must be awful at picking up cues.”

“Kinda, but it was fine. It meant I could stare longer.” Kyle laughed at his joke, the sound more like tittering and pure when surrounded by tapestries painted with satanic symbols. Henri really outdid herself on the décor.

“Okay, important counter-question: when did  _ you _ start to like  _ me?” _ Stan asked, feeling brave, and Kyle shrugged slightly while he took a short sip.

“I think I might have started to figure it out over winter break. I was  _ so _ angry, then I wasn’t, and then I was just getting eaten up by the usual anxiety demons.” He winced. “I thought you’d never want to speak to me again after I yelled at you like that. I get so angry sometimes that I just don’t listen to myself speak. It’s something I’m going over in therapy.”

Stan shook his head. “It was honestly not a big deal. I mean, I was pretty torn up about it over break too, but, y’know. Doesn’t really matter now, since we’re here.”

Kyle nodded with one of his little smiles, the ones that made Stan’s fingers tingly and his heart feel warm. “What about me was so fascinating, though? I don’t get it. Any old asshole could get in your face about a stupid cause, and I’d be disappointed if it was only because you thought I looked nice.”

‘Looked nice’ was an understatement, but Stan let it pass for now. He leaned forward on his elbows and stared into a flaw in the wood to the right of Kyle’s hands still firmly planted on his cup, their natural home base. Kenny had asked him this before, but it was an entirely different story to explain it to the one he was daydreaming about and not just a best friend. He thought hard about how to approach it before he decided to go simple, and he said, carefully, “I think it was your passion.”

Kyle’s eyebrows raised. “My passion?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, and feeling particularly thoughtful, he continued. “You just get so into things. And it wasn’t just the whole campaign and presentation thing, either. You’d rant to me about the injustices of some country I’ve never heard of and about how the dining hall had mashed potatoes every day for an entire week, and all with the same amount of energy. It’s kind of amazing,” Stan laughed a bit, letting his thoughts recklessly carry him forward, “that you can just talk so much.”

“So are you saying I talk  _ too _ much?” Kyle asked, a hint of warning sensitivity in his tone. Stan abruptly snapped out of his daydream and held up his hands to banish the thought.

“No! No way. I’d listen to you talk all day long, Kyle, I mean it.” He looked Kyle directly in the eye as he said his name, and he felt the energy between them spark like jolts of hot electricity. “That’s what I think is so great about you. You talk for hours and I love every second of it. I-I don’t know anybody else I’ve ever been so interested in. I’ve never cared so much about every word someone had to say.”

Kyle went silent, then. He looked down at his now empty mug, running his thumb over the handle of it, and Stan began to worry he’d said too much. Maybe he’d overstepped a boundary, going into such detail, but it was true, and he felt no reason to lie. Kyle’s lips were parted, just slightly, and Stan watched him lick his lips with a violent spike of nausea in his stomach. He wanted to—

“Can I-” Kyle finally began, throwing his head back up to reveal his brow creased in a wrinkle of confliction. “No, I’m just- can I just- ah,  _ fuck it,” _ Kyle said, and before Stan had time to decipher his verbal stumbling, Kyle got up on his knees, grabbed both sides of Stan’s face, and mashed their faces together.

_ …Oh. _

As soon as his brain caught up with the rest of him, Stan was leaning forward so that they met perfectly in the center of the table. With a sharp inhale he kissed him back, his hands sliding up to touch Kyle’s face too, and he was so overloaded with new information he saw vibrant stars behind his eyelids. Kyle’s skin was soft, so soft, and his lips even more so, and his  _ hair— _

Stan’s hand slid further past Kyle’s sharp cheekbone and up into the forest of soft red curls stuffed under his hat, and he was vaguely aware of said hat slipping entirely from his head in the process. His fingers threaded themselves through hair softer than even his most exhaustive daydreams could imagine, and he felt himself smile into the slow, meaningful touches of their lips that were dizzying him in all the best ways.

Their little kisses slowed, and Stan ran his thumb over Kyle’s cheek, pressing their foreheads together as they caught their breath. “Hey,” Stan breathed, “you know what I’ve wanted most, all this time?”

“What?” Kyle echoed, equally out of breath, and they separated slightly so that Stan could look into Kyle’s stunning eyes in a way he’d never been able to before, at such proximity. His amber eyelashes framed them so beautifully, Stan could cry.

“To do this,” Stan answered, and he combed his hand deep into Kyle’s mane. God, it was  _ fluffy. _ He was expecting the coils to be much thicker, coarser, but instead they were like thousands of tiny pillows for his hands to rest in. It was incredible.

Kyle laughed, in a way that was still light on his voice as he struggled to find his breath, and he pressed his head up into Stan’s touch. Stan’s heart skipped a beat. “To touch my hair?”

“You said you didn’t like people touching it, so I never wanted to ask,” Stan confessed sheepishly, and Kyle laughed again, louder this time, but they remained wrapped up in each other’s close holds, suspended over a table with two overturned empty coffee mugs.

“You’re so weird,” Kyle said, beaming toothily, the life in it reaching his eyes like sparklers. Stan couldn’t help but imitate it, and he leaned in for another slow press of their lips together, his heart taking flight in his chest.

They separated with a quiet smack, and though he hated to do so, Stan let go of Kyle’s hair and face and slid his hands down to the table. Kyle did the same, cupping his hands over Stan’s, and they were surprisingly hot. “Um”—Kyle cleared his throat—“so. Yeah. Sorry, about that.”

“Are you shitting me dude?” Stan said, and Kyle flinched backwards at the harshness of his tone. “Sorry, I just— do  _ not _ apologize for that, Jesus Christ. That was…”

“I’ve wanted to do that for months,” Kyle admitted, and Stan went wide-eyed.

“Why’d you wait so long? Jesus fuck,  _ Kyle, _ holy shit.” Stan fell back in his bean bag chair and laughed breathlessly, running a hand through his hair and holding his head in his hand while he processed what had just happened to him. It probably wouldn’t fully kick in for several hours, for how much it’d overwhelmed him in the moment. “How am I supposed to go to class after this?” He exclaimed, and Kyle snickered at him.

“You can text me while you’re bored.”

“Kyle, you just— you just  _ kissed _ me, dude, whoa.” Stan felt the world spin in a bout of violent vertigo, his stomach flipping six different ways.

“Was it bad?”

“What?” Stan nearly yelled. “God, no!”

“I mean,” Kyle began, his cheeks betraying his wily attitude by blushing furiously, “maybe we should just make sure, you know. Quality assurance.”

“Oh, that’s so important, you’re right. You’ve ranted to me about it at least three times by now.”

Kyle snorted. “Stop it, asshole, I’m trying.” Stan smirked, still not fully believing this was reality, and Kyle was suddenly kissing him again, this time with more enthusiasm and some slight teasing of his tongue on his lips. Anything more intense and Stan feared he’d lose all understanding of public decency, and he broke off their kiss with a snap.

“My aunt has a lake house that we go to every summer for like, a week.” Stan blurted out, and Kyle’s face twisted in confusion. “Family only. Come with me.”

“W-wait, I’m family now? After like, three kisses?” Kyle leaned back to laugh, but it didn’t feel mocking. He felt joyful and gorgeous and like more than Stan would ever believe he deserved. When his laughing stilled, he kept the dopey grin. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yeah. You’ve met my family already, it’s only fair I meet yours.”

Nerves twisted Stan’s gut. “Oh shit, that makes it really official, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, I think so,” Kyle mused quietly, his expression sobering up, “but I think I’d like that.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

The excitement buzzing in Stan’s chest, like a rib cage full of bees, kept him beyond cloud nine. Their cups had already been emptied, but they stayed in the coffee house the rest of their free morning hours. They fell into their usual routine, of Stan listening intently while Kyle chattered on, blissfully uninhibited. There were the usual tiny moments he was enveloped in the enchantment of Kyle’s eyes, whose speckled greens revitalized and destroyed him all at once. There were the time skips between Kyle’s erratic topic jumps, where he invited him to contribute his usual cynical quips. Kyle kicked him for a particularly dark-humored comment, and somehow, the devilish grin on his face felt so much more intense.

It could have been because he’d been infatuated with that grin for nine months, and now he knew what it felt like against his own. It could also have been that ever since he’d had the immeasurable pleasure of acquainting himself with it, he’d been unable to take his eyes off it. Most likely, though, it was for the same reason he’d been stunned that autumn day in the biting cold; Kyle Broflovski was, quite simply, something else, and beyond his comprehension in what felt like a million ways.

Stan was so incredibly, so absolutely, so devastatingly okay with that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, anyone want an epilogue?


End file.
